Jack White has a perpetually restless spirit that doesn’t allow him to be idle for an extended length of time, which is great news for those of us who continually look forward to hearing what he comes up with next, knowing that we will never have to wait too long for something new. On Sea Of Cowards, the Dead Weather‘s raucous and rollicking second album (coming a scant 10 months after the release of Horehound), the quartet sounds more focused and ferocious than they did on their breathlessly chaotic debut, while still channeling the tense, volatile mood that made the band so interesting in the first place. Alison Mosshart has grown comfortable taking over the reigns in what will always mistakenly be thought of as a White side-project, leading these edgy, unpredictable songs with her unbridled vocals and mercurial attitude, leaving no doubt that these turbulent tracks are as much hers as White’s. And even that acknowledgment does a disservice to guitarist Dean Fertita and bassist Jack Lawrence, who both continually propel these numbers forward with their experimental riffs and steady pulse. All in all, Sea Of Cowards is a much more cohesive effort than its predecessor, and even though it lacks the shock value and flat out surprise of their initial offering, it more than makes up for it with an added intensity and inventiveness that only builds on the promise of their debut.

The band tears through the 11 tracks on Cowards in just 35 minutes, with one song blending smoothly into the next, keeping the tension and energy level high throughout. Opener ‘Blue Blood Blues’ gets things off to an explosive start, with White delivering the random, cocksure vocals over an immense Led Zeppelin-like guitar riff that hooks you immediately, so much so that when the “da da da da” chorus comes towards the end of the song, you’d be a fool for not singing along. Mosshart takes over vocals on the simmering blues of ‘Hustle And Cuss,’ which tries hard but doesn’t quite blow the house down. ‘The Difference Between Us’ does, though, steamrolling the listener with a sinister keyboard riff born out of video game nightmares and the devil’s rec room, giving the song a musical tightrope that Mosshart dangles from perilously. She spends most of the record hanging out in that precarious realm, leaving the listener worried that she might fall from those lofty heights at any time, but completely captivating all of us so that it remains impossible to look away.

‘I’m Mad’ sounds like a collection of the mutterings behind the closed, padded doors of an insane asylum, where the inmates relentlessly pound on whatever is around them in hopes that it might sound musical. And it does, with Mosshart and White’s (it’s growing harder to decipher who is who throughout the record) maniacal laughter forming another offbeat rhythm around which the sound spirals fitfully. Lead single ‘Die By The Drop’ churns with a menacing ferocity, built around a potent vocal tug-of-war between White and Mosshart, with no clear winner in sight, other than fans who have been given yet another ace single from the band. ‘I Can’t Hear You’ and ‘Gasoline’ struggle to sound original, with recycled riffs and blues beats all sounding a bit tired and worn, no matter how spiritedly Mosshart delivers lines as awesomely venomous as “I don’t want a sweetheart, I want a machine.”

The album ends with a quartet of songs that are all sub-three minute blasts of discord and untamed turbulence, not so much songs with structure as they are distressed experiments in sound. There is an obvious lack of melody and steady tempo to these songs, but their unconventional nature expands the parameters enough for them to remain interesting, with the band getting fractured, damaged sounds out of their instruments that were never their intent. At this point in the record, the band are completely untethered to both form and expectations, exuberantly playing around in a studio that is starting to closer resemble a decadent laboratory. And by the time White performs the last rites on the combustible closer ‘Old Mary,’ you feel like he and the other members are laying to rest any assumptions that either their fans or they themselves placed on how far down and dirty the Dead Weather could truly get.