The Dead Weather : Sea of Cowards

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On Horehound, The Dead Weather injected their own warped blues into 70’s style doom rock with oomph.  On the groups second release Sea of Cowards all shackles seem to be have been discarded, allowing the band to experiment with different sounds, styles, and substances. 

The album plays quickly at just over a half hour, songs flow into each other, huffs and electronic twitches end one track then meld into organ swells to start another.  Keyboards seem to have been pushed to the forefront on numerous tunes like “Jawbreaker” and “The Difference Between Us”, both finding Alison Mosshart in ferocious feline form.  

With “Blue Blood Blues” Jack White comes as close as he ever has to hip-hop, “I Cut Like a Buffalo” from Horehound was that albums most perplexing song, but it painted the pattern for Sea of Cowards. What seems to be constant here are the off-kilter bass lines, fuzzed up groove and dark beats that make you “shake your hips/like battleships”.  “I Can’t Hear You” and “Looking At The Invisible Man” both have the slinky-get-down-vibe evaporating off of them like opium smoke.   

There are still flashes of leather clad rockers with “No Horse”, the primal piano punctuated “Die By The Drop” and the galloping “Gasoline” which burns bright, but this Sea of Cowards is vast, allowing The Dead Weather to sail constantly forward.         

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