The Dead Weather: Sea of Cowards

"I'm mad! Ha ha!" sings Alison Mosshart, four tracks into the Dead Weather's second album. Then, with she, Jack White, Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita seemingly of the belief that this convincingly summons up gothic insanity, she repeats it for most of the rest of the song. The effect, needless to say, isn't of a band operating at the outer limits of the mind. Instead, one imagines stickers attached to flight cases: "You don't have to be crazy to play sludgy blues rock – but it helps!" And therein lies the problem with the bulk of the album: it sounds as if it was a laugh to record, less so to listen to. There are thrilling moments: opener Blue Blood Blues (sung by White) is coiled and tense; No Horse shudders and judders on the back of its huge riff. But then another song, like Gasoline, that sounds like Iron Butterfly rolls into sight, and the heart sinks.