Expectations for a project featuring members of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Kills, and Queens of the Stone Age would almost have to run high. After all, these are all bands that find ways to draw on the classic tenets of rock without sounding completely indebted to the past. Yet the — which combines the talents of , , , and — aren’t so much concerned with living up to expectations as they are about defying them. There’s a different kind of alchemy on Horehound than on any of the bandmembers’ other projects.
Not only does returns to his first instrument, the drums, he also trades in the high-pitched yelp he uses with the and for a deeper, at-times unrecognizable, voice on “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” the lone Horehound track he wrote by himself. The ’s sound isn’t so much heavy as it is thick with a tense atmosphere that’s sustained throughout most of the album, and the group shuns the tighter structures of their other bands for a bluesy, jammy grind. Horehound’s opening track, “60 Feet Tall,” shows just how explosive this sound can be, from the teasing guitars and percussion that begin it to its lunging climax. Sexual tension is one of the few constants between the and and ’s other bands, and they use it particularly well on “Hang You from the Heavens” and “Treat Me Like Your Mother,” where their vocals and the lyrics “left, right, left, right” suggest a dance, or a fight, or something in between.
