Album Review: The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn
By Diana Buchert, Contributor
[Third Man; 2015]
Rating: 3.5/5
Key Tracks: “Be Still,” “Mile Markers,” “Buzzkill(er).”
Though former White Stripes frontman and current Third Man Records mastermind Jack White is notorious for his mind games, his tricks couldn’t deter fans from finding out some big news back in 2013: The Dead Weather was back in the studio after three years.
Even though the supergroup, which consists of White on percussion, lead vocalist Alison Mosshart (The Kills), guitarist Dean Fertita (The Raconteurs, Queens of the Stone Age) and bassist Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes, City and Colour), had only released two albums at the time, the band’s gritty sound was unlike anything White had previously made.
Over the band’s seven years together, the shift from sultry blues to high-energy, riff-tastic rock is evident even from the albums’ opening songs; the eerie percussion of Horehound’s “60 Feet Tall” pales in comparison to the force of “Blue Blood Blues” on Sea of Cowards, then even further to the loud guitars on TDW’s latest release, Dodge and Burn’s “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles).”
The album thrives on familiarity. Though Fertita’s guitar has gained more of a focus, similar reggae-esque rhythms on “Lose the Right” has echoes of “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” a track featured on Horehound. As usual, Lawrence’s buzz-heavy bass song remains an outstanding component on the band’s sound on songs like “Be Still.” It’s this buzz mixed with White’s heavy drumming and Mosshart’s powerful vocals that give The Dead Weather its punch.
Per usual, Dodge and Burn could not have gone without a test for the fans’ eyes and ears.
Some have located a hidden track near the label of Sea of Cowards’ vinyl version, which has fully manifested itself into “Mile Markers” on Dodge and Burn. Even the album’s cover, which features Lawrence donning a sixth finger, has fans enthralled with what is apparently some kind of joke from the band.
Although The Dead Weather excels at keeping true to its unique sound while adding in new elements, the action is interrupted with “Three Dollar Hat,” and settles on “Impossible Winner,” a weird ballad-esque song that feels off. But, lulls aside, Dodge and Burn is the tour-de-force of rock the band is known for, and fans wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
