Facebook's iLike is streaming the forthcoming Dead Weather album, Horehound, and what follows are my initial thoughts on hearing the album for the first time. It's due out July 13 on Third Man Records.

1. 60 Feet Tall - This lets the listener know right from the outset that this is not simply a female-led White Stripes. Jack White knows dynamics better than most of his peers, but he rarely does atmospherics quite like this. The song starts slow and quiet, with Alison Mosshart grabbing the song by the horns from the word go. Guitarist Dean Fertita (from Queens of the Stone Age) drops a squall of a solo here that one could easily mistake for something emanating from White's guitar. This is dark, brooding and awfully good.

2. Hang You From the Heavens - A more generic track that, at least in the YouTube version subbed by iLike, gets by largely on one big riff and Mosshart's leering vocals. It's a good riff and a good vocal, but after the inventive opener, this feels a little flat.

3. I Cut Like a Buffalo - The only solo White songwriting credit (the first two were Mosshart/Fertita originals) and his first vocal. This one is built on some nice organ work, from a pulsing low end to a skittering solo line. No idea what it means to cut like a buffalo, but White seems to mean it. His drumming on the first two tracks were fine, as the tempos were rudimentary enough to cover for any deficiencies. Here, with a slinky beat, his bare bones approach leaves me wanting. Someone with some real chops could really drive this song.

4. So Far From Your Weapon - Mosshart's only solo writing credit finds her growling her way through a stripped-down number that explodes into something sounding like a band being shoved down a flight of stairs. Thus far, one-third of the way through the album, it's clear that Mosshart is the band's not-so-secret weapon, and that while she is well-utilized in her day job with the Kills, the slow-boil menace of Dead Weather might be the better fit.

5. Treat Me Like Your Mother - One of three tracks on the album co-written by all four bandmates, this one starts with a wicked guitar line (which could be an organ) that must be fed through a passel of pedals at Fertita's feet. Mosshart stands toe-to-toe with the lick, while White's drums this time drive things just right, his ramshackle beat pushing Fertita's guitar up against the wall. White also contributes some solo vocals that offer a nice counterpoint to Mosshart's feline yowl. A definite standout.

6. Rocking Horse - A Mosshart/White composition that starts with... bass! Yes, Jack Lawrence really is in the band. He is quickly drowned out by Fertitia's spaghetti Western guitars and a duet between Mosshart and White, each singing through a telephone device.

7. New Pony - A strange Bob Dylan cover (drawn from 1978's Street Legal) with a fuzzed-out guitar solo that sounds like White must surely have come out from behind the kit to strap on his six string. If Dylan sang with the ferocity Mosshart brings to the track, Street Legal would have been a real return to form. Blasphemy though it may be to say, consider this a reworking of the level achieved by Jimi Hendrix on "All Along the Watchtower."

8. Bone House - The second full-band composition. A song driven by fuzzed-out bass (or guitar or organ) line with White pounding away on his drums (giving the cymbals particular punishment). Again, White and Mosshart's twinned vocals add some heft and show what is occasionally lacking in their main bands. "Always get the things I want," they sing in a way that conveys that what they want isn't always what they need.

9. 3 Birds - A kind of funky instrumental with some strangulated guitar sounds, a pulsing bass and a few other spacy sounds that keep things interesting for most of its 3:45 runtime. The last full-band composition. Acoustic guitar injects some needed variety about halfway through; still, this could have been trimmed a bit without losing anything. Beware, this feels like something that could be dragged out interminably in concert. I can see it now: Jack White drum solo!

10. No Hassle Night - Another Mosshart/White track, this one lumbers along like a fairly generic White Stripes song, albeit one with a lot of overdubbing. Not doing much for me; luckily it's mercifully short at 2:56.

11. Will There Be Enough Water? - The album ends with its first White/Fertita co-write, and it's the longest track on the disc. One expects a guitar freakout from these two, but things start quietly with some shuffling drums and an acoustic guitar line that sounds like something Keith Richards might cook up while coming off the nod splayed on a couch in a French chateau circa Exile on Main Street. It maintains that loping pace for its entirety, never bursting forth with the expected (and frankly, hoped for) guitar interplay. A bit of barrlehouse piano is as close as we get to a spike in dynamics here. It's a downbeat way to end the album, a real cool down after the heat of the rest of the tracklisting. Given the ho-hum nature of its lead-in, perhaps some judicious reworking of the sequencing could have improved things, but it's not a bad way to go out.

All in all, this was so much better than I expected. I haven't been excited by a White Stripes album since Elephant; this raised the hairs on the back of my neck in similar fashion. The Raconteurs never gelled for me despite the presence of longtime favorite Brendan Benson, so it's nice to see one of White's tangents pay off so handsomely.

One last note: the cover, while arresting, seemed familiar until I finally realized it looks eerily like the illustrated sleeve for the self-titled Fever Ray disc from earlier this year. Fitting, as that's another strange collection of songs fronted by a woman who subverts expectations. Kindred souls, perhaps.

Labels: first listen, music