Out This Week 7/14

The biggest release this week is obviously The Dead Weather‘s debut. As if The White Stripes and The Racounteurs weren’t enough, Jack White teamed up with the The Kills’ Alison Mosshart for yet another project of raw bluesy rock. This time, though, White takes a back seat, but only physically, behind the drum kit and lets Mosshart front the band with her ragged vocals, like Grace Slick through broken glass (and actually just incrementally different than White’s own voice). White’s pals, fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence and Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita, who also tours with The Raconteurs, join in on bass and guitar respectively. And White also produced the album and released it, partnered with Warner Bros., on his own label, Third Man Records. As heavy a role as White plays in the project, it started really as a fluke, when at the end of a tour shared by The Raconteurs and The Kills, White effectively lost his voice and The Kills lost their tour bus (well, actually, the driver took off with it). To decompress, White and Mosshart started a jam session and a suggested 7″ led to the full length out today, Horehound. Since then, several videos and a performance on Conan have followed, and this week The Dead Weather have begun a North American tour. All this in less than a year!

There are other albums coming out this week to, by the way. You’d be negligent not to check out the latest from The Most Sererene Republic, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Ty Segall, and the others found on Largehearted Boy’s list. So before you run over to your nearest record emporium to pick up Horehound, try a few of these on for size.