Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Drum Kit

In recent years, rock stardom has been demystified. Today's rock 'n' roll landscape is comprised primarily of anti-heroes and regular joes, and the sense of musicians as larger-than-life demigods has fallen by the wayside (call it the Chris Martin Syndrome, if you will). And thanks to the abundance of information available on the Internet, boundaries between musicians and commonfolk become slimmer by the day. Case in point: John Mayer's Twitter, where his incessant updates mean that fans can have access to the oh-so-fascinating minutia of his daily life (although who would want it?).

And then there's Jack White. Seven years after "Fell in Love with a Girl" turned the White Stripes into one of the most unlikely smash-hits of the millennium, White remains frustratingly inaccessible and endlessly unpredictable. Whether he's writing a jingle for Coke, punching out a former friend in a nightclub, or embarking upon a string of surprising collaborations and side projects, White has developed an enigma that borders on cult of personality. His obsessive compulsive aesthetic sensibilities -- the red/white/black colour scheme, the dapper roadies, the anachronistic recording methods -- only intensify the sense that he's a savant, operating on a different level from the rest of us. He is a Rock Star in the truest sense. The kind who can, and has, held his own on stage with Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones.

What makes Jack White even more intriguing is his apparent unwillingness to buy into his own superstardom. Eager to divert the attention away from himself, he formed the Raconteurs in 2005, a four-piece in which he shared frontman duties with singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. But despite the apparent democracy of the lineup, White's charisma always ensured that he was the focal point of any show. Even when retreating to his amplifier during a Benson-fronted number, all eyes followed him.

His newest band, the Dead Weather, takes this attempt to shirk the spotlight one step further: this time, White retreats behind the drums, forfeiting lead vocal duties to Allison Mosshart, frontwoman of the electro-garage duo the Kills. They are joined by Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar and Jack Lawrence (the Raconteurs) on bass. Together, the foursome wrote an album at White's brand new Third Man Studio facility in Nashville, working at a feverish song-a-day pace.

The result is Horehound, eleven tracks of primal blues and squalling garage punk, delivered with a visceral intensity that outdoes anything White has produced since the White Stripes' early home-recorded albums. Mosshart's vocal performance is chilling, replete with shrieks and banshee howls as she offers up threatening and often morbid lyrics; "I like to grab you by the hair / And sell you off to the devil," she spits on "Hang You from the Heavens." Meanwhile, Fertita provides sleazy blues licks and explosions of feedback-laden noise. The squealing guitar solo on "Bone House" is so twisted that it makes '90s-era Tom Morello seem tame in comparison. White and Lawrence provide a fittingly thundering backdrop -- drums are White's first instrument, after all -- blazing their way through free-wheeling song structures that include wild shifts in tempo (most notably the single "Treat Me Like Your Mother").

But, predictably, it's the rare moments when White takes the microphone that stand out the most. "Cut Like a Buffalo” is the best of the bunch, and, not coincidentally, it's the only track for which he receives sole writing credit. Based around a raunchy blues groove and fractured blasts of distorted organ, the song features one of the most unnerving vocal performances of White's career. What it's actually about is unclear, but when White snarls "You cut a record on my throat then you / Break me wide open," it's downright terrifying. Never before has the line "Do whatever makes you happy" sounded so ominous.

The Dead Weather is currently touring in support of Horehound, and will be coming to Vancouver for two nights at the Commodore Ballroom on August 21-22. Based on early reviews, the band is just as unhinged in person as on record. Still, no matter how good the performance is, you can bet that most of the audience will spend the show peering around the cymbals to try to get a better look at Jack.