5.

The Dead Weather
Sea Of Cowards

One of the few albums on the list which I think is better than its predecessor. And Sea Of Cowards isn’t just an improvement on Horehound, it’s lightyears ahead of it. While Horehound is the record I consider to be the black sheep of the Jake White back catalogue, Sea Of Cowards is up there with the best albums he’s made (for me being Consolers Of The Lonely and Icky Thump). Everything that was bad about Horehound is corrected here, and the seeds of good in The Dead Weather’s debut have unaccountably blossomed into something great. The mixture of scuzzy blues and electronica is just perfect here, and every track has something to offer. It’s perhaps no coincidence that the improvement from albums 1 to 2 coincides (as it were) with an increased role for White, in term of songwriting and crucially – vocals. Even the tracks where Alison Mosshart takes lead vocal duties, White tends to provide backing vocals which offer a much richer sound than just having Mosshart sing alone. The stand out track is ‘Hustle and Cuss’, which is the best song by The Black Keys that’s not by The Black Keys – a blues baseline to die for. Other highlights are the electronic ‘The Difference Between Us’ and the discordant underproduction of ‘No Horse’. An unexpected treat.