The next time you hear someone whining about the death of rock, stuff a copy of Sea of Cowards in their mouth. It’s a way, way overstated myth that rock music no longer exists — or, at least, doesn’t exist as the kind of balls-to-the-wall, greasy garage freak-outs that people remember partying to in the ’60s and ‘70s.

The Dead Weather is resurrecting that mix of soulful, druggy jamming, and they’re even keeping the solos intact. That’s not to say they’re a Led Zeppelin tribute act: With Jack White at the helm, the band’s music has a special, twisted darkness and some clever writing that will stick in your head (favorite line: “Shake your hips like battleships,” on “Blue Blood Blues”).

If the band’s debut, Horehound, seemed a little unsure of its first steps, “Cowards” lunges at the listener, grabs them by the shoulders, and gives them a good shake. It’s all about keeping rock’s tropes the same, but giving them a spin. There’s as much keyboard as on your dad’s old prog albums, but here they lend the music an alien weirdness, like on “The Difference Between Us,” where it gives the track a crawling, sinister undercurrent, something just a bit dangerous.

But it’s the guitar that speaks loudest on Cowards, with licks that have more in common with band mate Dean Fertita’s main project, Queens of the Stone Age, than with The White Stripes. The album offers a refreshing reply to the skittering post-punk guitar work that received an overdue — if overextended — revival in the ’00s. Where the former is driven by nervous, herky-jerky energy, The Dead Weather serve up swamp-rock: they’re all about sludgy skronk, croaking bass and yelped lyrics.

And some of those lyrics will scare the bejeezus out of you. Spooky closer “Old Mary” is eerie enough, with its scratchy burblings and baby coos layered over a tense framework of organ and guitar. The surreal lyrics sound like they’re straight out of a bad dream: “Old Mary, full of grease/Your heart stops within you/Scary are the fruits of your tomb and harsh are the terms of your sentence.”

This record undoubtedly earns The Dead Weather a place at the head of the modern rock table, preferably seated between The Black Keys and Eagles of Death Metal. There’s few bands that get retro right; even fewer make you stare at your speakers and ask, “Did I really just hear that?”

And you really did — it’s not just the ghost of rock ‘n roll.

(Third Man Records, 623 7th Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203-4601)

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Die By The Drop” by The Dead Weather