3. The Dead Weather – ‘Dodge and Burn’

THREEEE! Dun dun duuuun!

I don’t know what that was….just trying to make it more dramatic.

Hello once again!
I’m looking at the new album from The Dead Weather.
I bought this album for my dad for Christmas, and then quickly stole it and popped it on my iPod!
Just like last time, this isn’t a new band for me – I have their past albums, and am a huge fan of Jack White – got his solo albums, White Stripes, Raconteurs, and finally, Dead Weather.
But – just like last time! I’ve yet to listen to it. So now I will!

I will look at this album as if I haven’t heard any of that band before – although I might compare it briefly, which is hard to avoid because it’s quite a bit different to their past stuff!

Plus, sticking to the idea behind this blog – the artwork is awesome!

It’s a very menacing photo anyway, with everyone (apart from Jack) looking straight at the camera – with their dead eyes. The good news is they’ve perfected their zombie look in time for next Halloween. (The guy on the far left certainly looks like he wants to kill me…)

Then Jack’s in the middle trying to look cool. Who am I kidding? He IS cool! Look at that hair! He’s gone from Edward Scissorhands to Elvis.

The next noticeable thing is the background, which I THINK, is possibly slightly, yes definitely photoshopped. And resembles the Springfield Tire Fire.
Something else I only just noticed – check out the guy on the right – anything seem off?
*Quick google search* Ok, so he doesn’t REALLY have 6 fingers (or 5 fingers and a thumb for all of you who are pedantic…) on 1 hand. There’s a couple of special edition covers, which show and x-ray of a hand with 6 fingers. Don’t really know why though…

Moving swiftly onto the music. Straight off the bat I heard myself saying “Yep – that’s Jack White alright!” because the guitar and feel of the song is just like his last solo album ‘Lazaretto’. But with Dead Weather, Alison Mosshart sings lead vocals – and her attitude immediately comes through in her melodic screams.
The first song, ‘I Feel Love (Every Million Miles)’ is a very energetic start to the album – quite grungy rock with hints of metal and a sprinkle of blues in the overdrived guitar, thumping drums and harmonious bass.

This song really sets the tone for the album – energetic, loud, something my grandmother would HATE. It’s great!
It has a really interesting middle break, where it really breaks down to nearly half speed (it actually feels like it’s going to end, but it’s where they repeat the lines “Why does my heartbeat feel like a speaker? Feeding back. Repeater. Repeater”.
It sounds like it would be repetitive but with the 2 vocals of Mosshart and White blending perfectly, and the little musical quips make it really enjoyable to listen to! It then builds back up to the original speed to finish with the feedback of the guitar as if they’d recorded and put the guitar down and walked away from it, which I wouldn’t put past Jack White. I saw a live gig of his online, and at the end he put his guitar on a stand in the middle of the stage, walked off, and just let the guitar whale away for a good 5-10 minutes until a roadie came on stage and turned the amp off.

As for lyrics, I don’t really know what this song’s about. Although that’s not new for Dead Weather, or Jack White and any of his groups. “Nothing’s a colour, I cross the desert, nothing’s alive. What does the black top know that I have not cracked with my mind?”

Next up – ‘Buzzkill(er)’ carries on the same form – overdrived guitar and bass accompanied by drums with fast rolls blaring in every now and then. It’s a very simple band setup – guitar/keyboard (I think!), bass, drums, vocals. It’s a probability the record has a couple of additions that they don’t do live. But it only adds to it! SO I don’t think it would change much when they play live, if at all – in fact, they could be 10x better! Guess I’ll have to do some research….
*Youtubes ‘dead weather live’* - Oh. My. God. Ok – well, yeah, they’re alright I guess...(Probably not 10x better, but a good 2 or 3 times maybe….!)
As for this track, it sounds like it has keyboard, but it could easily be guitar through about 900 pedals to distort it – but I THINK it’s keyboard. A few notes held a bit longer than they would on guitar, and quite fast changes between notes. There’s definitely a guitar in the mix somewhere too though!
“I’ve got my boots and my jacket on, my cash and key. Got my highs and lows and I come and go as I please. Good Lord, I’ve got no time for you. I’ve gotta run.”

I think the song is summed up in the title. ‘Buzzkill: a person or thing that has a depressing or dispiriting effect’. So, I assume, it’s shouting at someone who’s not letting them have fun. And that person, I believe, is God. “Good Lord, forget about me. I’m doing fine.” Oh Lord, I got no minds for you. I will not please. No mercy shall be given me, down in Tennessee. Stop! Buzzkillin’ me!”

Track 3 is ‘Let Me Through’ which is more bluesy than the previous ones. “I’m a bad man, let me through.”  Same guitar again, with the same amount of pedals – but this time the bassist has got a few hundred of his own! I’ve never heard a bass which sounds like it’s going through a battery powered amp at full volume. If I listened to it for the first time without hearing anything else, I’d think my speakers just broke. But knowing it’s meant to be like that, it sounds awesome! It’s like (and I’m getting all drummer here so bear with me) like when you get a nice 20” ride and put a cracked 16” crash stacked on top. Hit it out of context and it sounds worse than hitting a metal bin lid. But put it in the mix a bit and grunge it up, and it sounds great! I mean, it still sounds like you’re still using the DIY-kitchen-kit with added accessories of bin lid cymbals, chip pan cowbell, and pepper grinder shaker. But if you’re playing that behind a band like The Dead Weather, and you’re a good enough drummer, it’ll still sound great! (Also – if any band members, managers, promoters, family, friends of the band see this – PLEASE do a cover of one of your songs on DIY instruments! I DARE YOU).

“I got a bloodhound tooth hanging like a dagger in a bar out west. If you try and pull it down you know I’ll save all my best shots for you. Boom boom boom.” Don’t mess with this girls dog tooth!

The next song is easily my favourite on the album – ‘Three Dollar Hat’.

Before I start reviewing the song – I want to write out some of the lyrics:
I'm that bad man named Jackie Lee
Shooting everybody down with a .33
Jackie said Johnny can't you see?
That you love everybody but Jackie Lee?

Johnny said to Jackie don't take my life
I got three young kids and a bad-ass wife
Jackie told Johnny you're acting crazy
What you know about having a baby?

I won’t copy all the lyrics, but will say it escalates! It’s a very dark, but interesting story told through the song. Surrounded by psychedelic sounds. It sounds like they’ve taken a keyboard, played a song on it, and then sped it up to fit in 30 seconds. Or they got someone like me to go in and play a guitar solo. Out of key, weird timing, not hitting the right notes. But, once again, it works! That’s blues for ya!

The song is written in the first person, and I think it’s about a man called Jackie Lee, who’s accusing Johnny for stealing his hat, and he’s basically going to kill everyone until he gets his hat back. But in the end, it’s the thirst for the hat that kills him.
I thought I’d search online to see if anyone had tried to explain the lyrics, but found something more interesting. A quote from Alison Mosshart: “And as per usual with the Dead Weather, it was written and recorded at the same time. There’s not a lot of thought put into the writing of the music, it’s really just a human, organic explosion. Everyone starts playing at the same time and we start writing lyrics at the same time — just making stuff up and singing.”

Aha! That would explain why I’ve had trouble figuring out what the lyrics meant, and the story or message behind the songs. But The Dead Weather write music which is just fun to listen to, and isn’t meant to be picked at.

So yeah….I guess I’ll leave this review at that.

But then I’ll have to stop listening to it as much…..which I don’t want to do because it’s so awesome!

Ok, review’s re-commenced!

‘Lose the Right’ is next. This time it’s definitely a keyboard, with some kind of cathedral organ setting. (Unless they actually used an organ – which would be awesome!)
This is accompanied with drums and bass. With a guitar solo taking over the song for 13 seconds. I could’ve listened to that solo for another minute or more – it really fits with the song as well as Mosshart’s voice – will have to keep an eye out for a live version of the song. There’s bound to be great solos when White’s on guitar.

“Oh, you lose the right. When your mind goes straight to hell, you lose the right to tell anybody what to do.”  Now that I’ve learned that the band write the lyrics while they’re recording, and putting as little thought into as they can, so the songs are pure and unaltered, I now listen to the songs differently. I’ve always paid more attention to the music than the lyrics and vocals because I’m a drummer, not a singer. So this is a new exercise for me in terms of reviewing the songs and lyrics and the meanings behind the song and how well the artist has portrayed those meanings.
But when those songs don’t really have a meaning, that when it gets tricky!
But this seems to be about someone who has been unfaithful, a hypocrite, or untrustworthy.
“I always knew you put poison in your potion”

Following ‘Lose the Right’ is ‘Rough Detective’.
In this song, White and Mosshart are singing in call and respond. With White starting. “You’re an unusual suspect now and may be right. The kind all men cannot recollect or forget at night. You’re the rough detective with the smokey eye, where the person you are after is the other guy.”
It’s great how well the 2 voices go together. With White’s quite rough, and pitchy. And Mosshart’s quite mellow yet brutal. They’re the best words I could use to describe their voices without looking in a dictionary. No-one sings like them – especially not like White with his high pitched squeals. He sounds a lot like my cat when she’s hungry. It actually seems like she’s taken the vocal lead towards the end of the song, where it’s full of squeaks like someone hasn’t oiled a door hinge in a few years (the lyrics that I found online put that part as “ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah” – but try and sing that breathing in as high pitched as you can go. That’s kinda what it sounds like). The section is then made perfect by the quick-fired line “what’s happening?!”.

It seems like the songs about a detective who’s chasing a suspect, but isn’t a very good detective! “Don’t make me run, baby. Don’t make me run.”. But like the previous songs, it could be about anything! It’s what you make of it really.

Track 7 is ‘Open Up’ which has a nice energetic start and then dies down to lightly strummed guitar and keyboard. Then suddenly. *Thump* and the guitar kicks in louder building the song. But as soon as it picks up, it dies down again. I’ve heard music similar before, while watching ‘Death Race’ – the film where Jason Statham is imprisoned in the most messed up prison in the world (unless you watch Death Race 2….that ones worse.) where he has to drive around and kill the other drivers in a new type of reality TV. This music reminds me of the intro and credits music. It’s not got the same guitar, but it has a similar vibe when it dies down to guitar and keyboard.

The lyrics are….strange. To say the least. The chorus is just “Open up, open up. That’s enough! That’s enough!” repeated over and over with Mosshart singing the first part, and then the rest of the band singing the last part – which could be taken in many ways. I’ll leave you to think it through to yourself….

“Mind is faster than pen but the end is so stupid. Like bubblegum in your hair isn’t fair but it smells good. Breathe in but you choke, but you choke on a mouthful of everything that you hoped, that you hoped was not there. But it’s here. It’s here!”

Next up – ‘Be Still’.
Starting with a full 7.5 second silence, it then comes in with a guitar that sounds so dirty it probably featured on an episode of Time Team. The vocals then come in, and is quickly followed by drums and organ joining in on the fun! “Ice pop. Blue green. Sweet tooth. Yellow thing. You dream in cartoon. Love pink.”
This one, like many of the other songs features quite a lot of screaming, and, like the previous song, has White and Mosshart singing one after another. But this time, they’re singing “Be still” one after another.

The next thing I notice, this song is rather short! It’s only 2:48 – yet feels longer – especially with the dramatic beginning.
As for the lyrics – still not a lot of clues as to what it’s about. They say ‘be still’ a lot. “Little sister, the earth quakes no matter what.”

‘Mile Markers’ is up next with drums and bass followed by a great little drum solo to begin with. “The cold white flamingo wins at black market bingo that we used to play, but we don’t play no more.”
The vocals are very Scatman John and Courtney Barnett. Talking the lyrics in a melodic way, and it works brilliantly! It gives me hope that even if I can’t sing, I can still sing – it also makes the song quite punky, and bluesy – which is a really nice addition to the album. I know most of it is bluesy, but this is a different kind of blues. Old blues like Robert Johnson is a very rich blue, not very bright, but very full in colour. Then this song is a pearlescent finish. Electric blue with a small hint of the colour of Leeloo’s hair in The Fifth Element. It shouldn’t work, but if you look at it just right, it all makes sense and you realise how it’s such an awesome thing!
 This song has the most amount of lyrics on the album by far, with Mosshart talking nearly the whole time, with a few gaps for backing vocals and solos. “Big boys, bad girls, grind their teeth in stereo”.

Next – ‘Cop and Go’.
This song screams 80’s cop show. I don’t know if it’s just the title that made me think that – but it really does!
It starts with a strange guitar noise and a hi-hat hit. Then changes to a synth sound like someone’s having a VERY bad heart attack. The guitar riffs and vocals throughout the song go together beautifully. (Although I wouldn’t call any of these songs typically ‘beautiful’ they’re beautifully written and are nice to listen to, even though the songs themselves aren’t typically a ‘nice’ thing to listen to. It’s not like laying in a room filled with thousands of pillows. It’s more like sitting in the back of a Rolls Royce Phantom, but at the same time it’s being driven around a race track by The Stig. It’s really good fun, and a nice experience, but it’s not ‘nice’ – you’re still being thrown around – but you will have a smile on your face!) So yeah, the vocals and guitar go together really well!
“Look at me on the level, uh-huh. Like we got shit to settle, uh-huh. But all you do is cop like a cop and go.”
I really enjoyed listening to this song – it’s not as weird as all the other songs, but I do have to admit, the constant beeping at the beginning and end of the song did start to drive me up the wall a tad.
‘beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep’

Nearly done! The very funky ‘Too Bad’ is next up.
The first thing that strikes me as strange is the vocals in the intro. It’s simply Mosshart shouting “Hey!” but she’s then put on a carousel which is then quickly spun faster and faster while still shouting every time she goes the whole way round to create ‘hey     hey      hey    hey  hey heyheyheyhehehhhhh’. There is a word for it, but I can’t think of it right now!

“I’m going back, yeah I’m going back. I’m going back to bed baby, it’s just too too too too too bad!”
This song has some really great bass and guitar parts, making it really funky with a perfect mix of rock and blues. I wish I could describe how the song goes using words. But ‘dun dun diddliddliddliddliddle’ doesn’t really work, and I can’t say it sounds like another song, because I can’t think of 1 that it sounds like!
Unlike the next song, which is the last song on the album. (Nice Segue!)

‘Impossible Winner’ confused me for a bit. I thought my iPod had shuffled onto a different album. It sounds a lot like a Bond theme track.
It’s actually written by Mosshart (unlike the other songs which are written together as a band, or by Jack White) – I decided to do a bit of research on this song, because it’s so out of place on this album, and I found something interesting!
Alison Mosshart – “I didn't think of that song as a Dead Weather song” "I just got to the studio before everyone, which is rare, because I'm usually the last one to get there. I was sitting there playing to myself, and Dean just walked in and caught me. He had me play it to him, then he started playing piano. It was like a stupid movie: LJ walks in the door and starts playing bass. Twenty minutes later, Jack gets in and starts playing with us."
Apparently the song was meant to be for The Kills (Mossharts other band), but she wanted to try it out with Dead Weather to see what they did with it. Personally, I think it really showcases their ability! Not only can they play rocky/metal/blues – but they can do big band stuff too!
It could’ve easily been sung by Tina Turner, Shirley Bassey or any of the top female swing singers in front of the London Symphony Orchestra. That’s what it sounds like! Which really says how great Alison Mosshart is! Yeah, she can scream, but damn she can’t half sing!!

“I'm no beginner, I'll be here every night, My name up in lights. The impossible winner.”

And on that note, that’s the end of the album – and what a way to end it!

In summary, I love this album! Which isn’t a surprise, because I love the other Dead Weather albums, and this is simply an extension of those, but definitely shows how they’ve progressed and evolved. It’s definitely a Jack White band because it’s got a lot of the same bits as he does with his most recent solo album but with the great vocals from Alison Mosshart.

I will definitely continue to listen to this album, and will immediately put it on my ‘Jack White Playlist’ which consists of 3 JW solo albums (1 which is live), 2 Dead Weather albums (now 3), 2 Raconteurs albums and 5 White Stripes albums. That way I can have about 12 hours of Jack White. For those who don’t know, I’m quite a big Jack White fan. And if he brings out another album this year (which I doubt he will), I will definitely be reviewing it – just so I can listen to it for a week straight. The review will just be “BEST ALBUM EVER THE END GOODBYE GONNA LISTEN TO IT 10 MORE TIMES. NEXT BLOG – THIS ALBUM AGAIN!!”.

Or, I dunno, I could actually review it….we’ll see!

Do you agree/disagree with anything I said? Like / dislike the review? Any constructive criticisms? Please leave a comment below! Would love to hear from you. Also, if you have any recommendations of albums I should listen to and review (as long as the artwork is awesome), let me know.

Thanks for reading, keep tuned for the next blog.

I’ll be reviewing Bon Iver – ‘Bon Iver’

Don’t forget to check out my website, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube below.

I’m doing these blogs alongside my better half; Fern Teather – she is listening to a new albums (doesn’t matter about the artwork, she’s trying to expand her musical knowledge and listen to new artists!). She’s also keeping a blog, and it’s nowhere near as long as this one, so go give it a read!!
Check it out here: 52-albums.blogspot.com

Catch ya laters!

Sam

www.bongoboy.co.uk
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