Autre Ne Veut + Henry Wagons featuring Alison Mosshart | Track reviews

“Unwelcome Company”
Henry Wagons featuring Alison Mosshart

There’s a distinct showmanship to Henry Wagons’s rich voice, which immediately calls to mind the decisive baritone of fellow Australian Nick Cave, though Wagons is drawn to a more rugged strain of Americana. “Unwelcome Company” teams him with a winner in Alison Mosshart, working in a more uninhibited mode than we’ve heard from her in the Kills or the Dead Weather. Here she’s wild, unleashing a growl that’s both menacing and seductive. Meanwhile, this sand-swept ripper sounds as if it should be scoring a spaghetti Western; soaring choruses conjure the image of Mosshart and the Melbourne crooner atop galloping horses. “Everywhere I go they follow me,” rumbles Wagons, whose name is apt—this rousing duet sounds as if he should be pulling into a saloon on one.

Henry Wagons plays the Empty Bottle Monday 25.