Sea Of Cowards

Sea of Cowards is even wilder, with grungier guitars ("I'm Mad," "No Horse"), greasier synths ("The Difference Between Us," "Gasoline") and funkier neo-John Bonham beats from White himself ("Jawbreaker," "Old Mary").

Sea of Cowards, the sophomore release from this psychedelic-blues band The Dead Weather, in which Jack White drums and sings, is a solid addition to his catalog, with 35 minutes of furious guitar solos and demonic howls.

Their sophomore album (following up last year’s Horehound) cranks the mojo up to 11, splitting time between inferno-grade blues-rock and grooves so swampy they practically emit wavy stink lines.

On the Dead Weather's second album, they harness this icy alpha-dog tension into a distorted call-and-response aggression that's now greater than its parts, a rudely heavy swath of rock'n'roll authority.

Sea Of Cowards, then, is the record The Dead Weather should have come out with first, casting them firmly as a real band, albeit one that sound like they’d roofie their fan club soon as look at them. It’s actually supremely brave and exhilarating.

Alison Mosshart inhabits the role of a lead singer cagily, at once beckoning and rebuffing affection; her fellow vocalist Jack White does the same thing, with ruddier results.

While ‘Hustle And Cuss’ and ‘I Can’t Hear You’ rely too much on the practically prehistoric blues template White has employed throughout his career, the slinky stomp and lusty roar of ‘Gasoline’ and the crashing, panting, hair rawk solo-infused ‘Jawbreaker’ show that The Dead Weather have found the balls to break free of such constraints.

Umpteenth Jack White side-project finally comes good.

If Stripes fans want to give Dead Weather another chance, this one deserves space in the record collection.

A delightfully different gang of fuzzy funk rapscallions. A solution worth soluting. [Jun 2010, p.118]

The problem with any attempt at sleazy blues metal is that you’re somewhat doomed by comparison to everything Led Zep has ever done. But Mssrs. Plant and Page might even flinch at the ferociously unrepentant scuzz of “Blue Blood Blues” and “Hustle and Cuss,” with its spooky Hammond and heaving dynamics.

Even if Sea of Cowards sounds more bashed-out than labored-over, it works. It's a heavy, snarly, physical rock album, and it feels like the work of people so secure in their ass-kicking abilities that they don't have to sweat the details.

Sea Of Cowards storms through 11 songs in 35 minutes, and while few of those songs are memorable in and of themselves, the album as a whole has a spontaneity and ferocity that makes it a fleetingly thrilling half-hour of throwback rock.

It could have easily gone into darker, scarier narratives and/or sonic atmospheres but they shut it down at the near three-minute mark. Unnecessary brevity is a sticking point: Sea Of Cowards' 11 tracks run a little over 35 minutes.

Sea of Cowards works hard to dispel those not-unjustified notions of The Dead Weather being Jack White’s third-best band. What’s even stranger is that they appear to have succeeded, in spite of the fact 80% of the record proceeds from a fairly lumpen blues template which at first glance would seem to suggest a continued dearth of inspiration.

Technically, these 11 tracks are songs, with titles and hooks. The effect, though, is more like a precisely arranged parade of spasms, blasted at you in a kind of aural IMAX.

On Sea of Cowards, they’ve made an album that manages to sound like they give a damn about not giving a damn, and one that’s pretty compelling, more often than not.

White and company make almost no concessions to their audience, and fewer songs stand out here than they did on Horehound. And yet, this is a more satisfying album overall. Fortunately, Sea of Cowards' mysteries are more intriguing than frustrating.

So, yes, Sea of Cowards is something of a jumble. But it's an entirely ecstatic one. White uses the side project as an opportunity to vent his more stridently ludicrous material, the kind of megaphone announcement, blues-jive moments that he tries out every so often with the White Stripes.

Sea Of Cowards sounds like the record Jack White’s been trying to make for a long time. Whatever he does next will probably sound that way, too.

Sea Of Cowards is undeniably a major rock record in terms of production and personnel, but is caught between two camps: What is contains is neither major, nor indie, simply enjoyably minor. [Jun 2010, p.94]

The mood is authentically heavy but the impact is strangely light. [June 2010, p. 104]

Sea of Cowards, for all its snarkiness and caustic overtones, is ultimately a fun record, but it’s likely the band had way more fun playing it than I did listening to it.

But as with “Horehound,” “Sea of Cowards” is all about the volatile vibe rather than songs. When the vibe works, it’s a decent approximation of the band’s top-shelf live show. But beneath all the “Hustle and Cuss,” the tunes just aren’t there.

Underneath the goop, the recycled riffs wear thin and there is such lack of songwriting that, though they might get heavy, tracks also get dull quickly. But here's the rub: some of it's catchy and ridiculous enough to be enjoyable.

It's no surprise that the album feels rushed and convoluted. [Spring 2010, p.62]

Unlike the Ranconteurs' sophomore slump, Sea of Cowards doesn't suffer from lack of inspiration. It's simply a matter of a lackluster songwriting effort as the product of deserved success, which in some respects is a worse misstep.

Yet while White stalks bewitching frontwoman Alison Mosshart to sublime effect in "The Difference Between Us" and "Die by the Drop," the album still sounds rushed, as if the Dead Weather can't wait to storm the stage.

The Dead Weather have released another quickly recorded batch of entirely unmemorable, unpleasantly limp rock music showcasing Jack White’s increasingly irrelevant take on garage, blues, post-punk, and guitar refuse.

There is some real chemistry here, but for the third album, it may be advisable to pay more attention to quality control in order to make the truly epic album that is doubtlessly lying somewhere within The Dead Weather.