MEDIA REVIEWS
ALBUM
Mark Lanegan Band
Blues Funeral
4AD
“Gravedigger’s Song,” the
opener on Mark Lanegan’s latest solo effort,
chugs away like an industrial locomotive,
channeling the pounding double-bass and
power scuzz that the Screaming Trees’ frontman has been a part of for many years as
a vocalist with Queens of the Stone Age.
Lanegan showcases his best Tom Waits bobcat
growl with an in-your-face vulnerability (think
Johnny Cash’s “Hurt“). The album was made
in Hollywood with guitarist Alain Johannes
(Red Hot Chili Peppers, QOTSA), with help
from Josh Homme (who played guitar for the
Screaming Trees in the ’80s), and the Afghan
Whigs’ Greg Dulli. Lanegan continues a
long line of meaningful collaboration, which
includes half a decade with QOTSA and three
albums with Belle & Sebastian’s Isobel Curtis.
Listening to the ornamentally layered
arrangements on Blues Funeral, it’s obvious these musicians have covered a lot of
ground together. The guitar work includes
high-pitched twangs that seem to float in
the air as a complement to Lanegan’s seriously rich, dark rasp as it saunters between
fairly melodic and downright crude.
The underlying murky tones give a
glimpse into the players’ lo-fi past, although
the music is precisely and more diversely
evolved. Somehow the bold Lanegan easily assimilates a wide range of instrumental
styles—from the Zeppelin-tinged, blues-rock
slide work in the standout track “Riot in
My House” to the echoing pop synths in
“Ode to Sad Disco,” for example. Laudable
surprises are offered up with colorful majesty, as an unexpected electronic/techno feel
in “Harborview Hospital“—with Lanegan
booming over an Edge-inspired delay—
imbues a melancholy beauty not unlike the
delivery and mood captured on the National’s
High Violet. But an added shot of light makes
the song immediately more accessible, a different kind of deep with, dare I say, a purposeful outlook.
Throughout Funeral, Lanegan remains
focused as hell and fits his steady, quirky,
unmistakable crooning in however he
pleases. It’s a curious album that way—not
a one-train track, but confidently exploring opposites and blending them. Lanegan
