Braving the storm ... Jack White's new band the Dead Weather. Photograph: Ed Rode/PR
Their name is the Dead Weather and they are Jack White's new band. The White Stripes frontman and Raconteur-in-chief unveiled his new side project on Wednesday night, playing a set in Nashville for 150 invited guests. White is joined by Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita, the Kills' Allison Mosshart and fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence.
However, it is Mosshart who provides lead vocals for the band, with White relegated all the way to the back – on drums.
The 20-minute set offered a tantalising taste of the Dead Weather's bristling, macabre rock. Recalling Black Mountain, the White Stripes' Blue Orchid and even bits of Primal Scream, the set's highlight was a cover of Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric?
That song, together with Hang You from the Heavens, can be heard now at the Dead Weather website, and is available from iTunes. A vinyl edition of the single is being issued by White's label, Third Man Records, with an album – already-recorded – promised in June.
Attendees of the gig, at Third Man's new headquarters, each received a hand-painted seven-inch single.
The news of yet another Jack White project does not bode well for the immediate future of the White Stripes. The duo have mostly been on hiatus since 2007, when their autumn tour was cancelled due to Meg White's "acute anxiety". Though they briefly reappeared to perform on last month's final broadcast of Late Night With Conan O'Brien, that one-off TV gig came and went without further announcements.
The White Stripes' last album was 2007's Icky Thump.