No one tells stories like Jack White. Listen to “We Are Gonna Be Friends”, “Take Take Take”, “Carolina Drama”, or a dozen other tracks from his illustrious career for proof of this should you be foolish enough to dispute such a claim. That's whats kind of strange and disorienting about Sea of Cowards (continuing the Jack White trend of giving his albums impossibly cool names). There aren't much in the way of focused tales or stories this time around. Rather this album appears much more impulsive with White and co vocalist Alison Mosshart spitting out, admittedly bad ass, but certainly tangent and meandering one liners. From an audience stand point, this cannot be classified as a criticism, but merely an observation. If there is fault to be found in such a tactic, its that it gives the album a slightly deranged quality. Rather than natural progressions insofar as lyrics are concerned such as climaxes, chorus- you know, structure- the album seems to be a series of non-sequeters fearlessly cobbled together by a pair of mad scientists. This is no doubt by design as the Dead Weather has always been an experiment in modernizing and recreating the the off the top of your head spontaneity and improvisation of traditional blues rock that has done so much to influence White's journey through the industry. This isn't indicative of the whole album, just much of it- some songs still follow a more defined route like “the Difference between us”. The non linear nature of Sea of Cowards actually reminds me a little of Skeletal Lamping by Of Montreal. I never thought I'd compare the Dead Weather to the work of Kevin Barnes, but here we are.
Interestingly enough, much of the musical content of the album, melody and harmony, guitar and piano- are actually more linear and logical in terms of pacing. Keyboards are more rhythmic and flowing proving to be a functional apparatus- especially in tracks like “The Difference Between Us” and “Invisible Man” as opposed to obtuse distractions in the Dead Weather's first effort Horehound. Piano and guitar play well of each other creating an nervous sort of urgency that continuously builds until a visceral explosion in the albums centrepiece “Die By the Drop”. “Gasoline” opens with a goofy but playful carnival vibe; however you soon forget it once the song escalates into its blisteringly convoluted solo that will no doubt piss of Jack White when it winds up in future iterations of Rock Band. The result is tracks like “Old Mary” with a cool and calm melody with a sense of direction that is applied to basically one not fully realized thought, “Now to the moment of your last breathe”. The opening track “Blue Blood Blues” has a deadly catchy guitar hook with Mosshart panting in the back ground while Jack White screams “shake your hips like battleships” and “when I come home all the neighbours are pissed, I make them now this”. Does it make sense? Not really. But it's still pretty cool.
As with Horehound, One of Sea of Cowards best attributes is the interplay between Jack White and Alison Mosshart. The duo bonce abrupt screeches, under the breath mumbles, psychotic boasting, frail cascading wails and breezy one liners off of each other with ease and vigor. Its actually not easy to figure out exactly who is singing at all times as the two sound not entirely dissimilar. White has this feral femininity to his voice where Mosshart can drag and pull her voice into the guttural lower octaves like she was born with a cigarette in her mouth. She lives up to her reputation as the person who only stops firing automatic weapons in the suburbs to light a smoke. Its especially satisfying when she channels her inner DFA 1979 and starts moaning in this bellicose manner, “I don't need a sweetheart, I need a machine!”. Both of their voices manage to at least approach if, not occupy this liminal space between genders. Their voices mix and blend together in to a intimidating, aggressive but strangely inviting cocktail. Unfortunately there is too much post production distortion and obscuring applied to the vocals. This not only doesn't help with the who is singing this part conundrum, but it seems to be an anathema to the more organic quality to the sound and feel of the instruments.
Sea of Cowards is a more nonsensical spontaneous outing than Horehound. But its also more catchy. Nothing grabs you by the whatever part of your self is effected the most by a song like “Treat me Like Your Mother”, But there are still some real stand out tracks like “Blue Blood Blues”, “Die by the Drop” and “The Difference Between Us”. You will listen to these songs more than once. Beyond that, comparative analysis between the first album and this one is not very instructive. They're actually fairly different albums. With this album, White shows that he has more than just a good folk tale in him; I'm just not sure how much of it anyone wants.
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