It’s been three years since the White Stripes’ stem-winding Icky Thump, and while talk of their seventh studio album hasn’t reached a Chinese Democracy–worthy pitch quite yet, Jack and Meg White haven’t performed together since the finale of Late Night With Conan O’Brien in February 2009. But Jack has been restless, assembling two supergroups in the past few years to keep our ears full of those rangy garage licks and hoary, badass lyrics. With the Dead Weather White moved from center-stage guitar to drums and ceded lead vocals to Alison Mosshart of the Kills and Discount. On its sophomore LP, Sea of Cowards, the band comes across like a full-on sonic marriage between White and Mosshart, who trade angry, sexy lyrics above sounds turned up well past 11. (“Rolling in on a Burning Tire,” the Dead Weather’s uncharacteristically quiet contribution to the Twilight Saga: Eclipse soundtrack, is an outlier.) You can bring your earplugs, but they probably won’t do you much good.

THE DEAD WEATHER PERFORMS WITH HARLEM AT 7 P.M. AT THE 9:30 CLUB, 815 V ST. NW. SOLD OUT. (202) 265-0930.