Let's call the debut album by The Dead Weather what it really is, a kick in the gut blues-rock album with a creative streak heard on every song.  This may be a Jack White album, or it might just be what it really alludes to being, a legitimate attempt at being a functional band, fully intent on doing this again down the road.  Whatever the end results, this album is a very listenable set of songs that were written in a collaborative effort.

Horehound is a bluesy work with an experimental streak running through many of the songs.  The songs are sung with gutsy vocals by Alison Mosshart (of The Kills), and the music is played with late '60s FM-style abandon by the others (Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age, Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs, and the very busy Jack White.)  There's plenty of the stuff that should make you a pleased listener.

Take the early appearance of the lone Jack White-penned song, a reggae-ish “I Cut Like a Buffalo.”  It steps aside from the general hard-edged flow of the album and is easily one of the album's high points.  Other high points include the frenetic “Treat Me Like Your Mother,” and the brilliant interpretation of Bob Dylan's under-rated “New Pony” from Dylan's equally under-rated Street Legal album from the late '70s.

But the complete set of eleven tracks that make up Horehound are fun to listen to, enjoyable to fans of not only Jack White's experimental nature, but also the album's approach, which is a style that we have been deprived of lately.  While Horehound may not be everyone's cup of tea, particularly the younger audiences, it will light up an otherwise lacking slate of late '60s psychedelic Rock style that some of us appreciate.

Horehound will easily stay in your player for more than a listen or two.