There are times — not many, but a few — when I sit down to write about an album and know I’m not going to need to pull out my gonzo rock n’ roll thesaurus in order to spin my praise. This is one of those times. As one friend recently stated, “Mark Lanegan has no peers,” and, really, what more needs to be said? The musician’s work with The Screaming Trees, Gutter Twins, Isobel Campbell, Soulsavers, and others is well documented, but the landscape he’s laid out with his solo work is incredibly gorgeous and virtually untouchable. The majority of his recorded solo material is deep, dark, and gracefully tortured, but where the albums he’s released as just Mark Lanegan present it in a softer form, the Mark Lanegan Band turns it up and wraps it in a whole bunch of grit, fuzz, and noise. It’s been eight years since their only other album, 2004′s Bubblegum, but Blues Funeral picks right up where that one left off, turning drum machine chaos, savory sequencing, bluesy rhythms, and a malady of melody into something emotionally gripping and powerfully rock n’ roll. Of course, as with anything Lanegan does, it’s his voice that is the star, and Blues Funeral is no exception. His voice could sell me my own death and I’d buy it. And at least I’d be at peace knowing I’ve got an amazing soundtrack for the long, slow walk down. No one does it better.
Check out the video for “The Gravedigger’s Song” from Blues Funeral!
Social Distortion Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes
Epitaph
It took about eight years after White Light, White Heat, White Trash for Social Distortion to drop Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll on us, but its bitter edge ripped something hard, and the straight-up hot rod rock was more than equal to the time it took to make. Now another seven years have passed and Mike Ness and his boys (now including Jonny Wickersham on guitar, Brent Harding on bass, and Josh Freese on drums) have returned once more with Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, a laid back, almost antithetical musical entity to what came before, the emphasis of the album’s action akin to reminiscing in a rocking chair instead of brawling in a back alley. I’m certainly willing to cut Ness some slack because he’s one of the few untouchables out there — and he’s been doing it for nearly 30 years — but with the exception of riff-proud opener “Road Zombie,” the Exile on Main St. blues of “California (Hustle and Flow)” and “Can’t Take it With You” (both complete with back-up soul singers), and the Thunders street glam of “Machine Gun Blues,” the songs lack a lot of the band’s signature knuckle tattoo grit and O.C. psycho stamina. What’s left are a bunch of mellow cow punk songs that might have a better run on the reported acoustic album that the band was/is supposed to be making. Regardless though, it’s nice to finally hear another Social Distortion record, and I’ll gladly take their rock n’ roll (even if it is a tad deflated) over most others’.
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Hawk
Vanguard Records
Yeah, okay, so the folksy, sultry tunes of Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan don’t exactly fall in with the rank and file of doom, metal, and stoner rock that you usually find around here, but the fact of the matter is — if you don’t know this already — Lanegan is a bad-ass, whiskey-voiced deity in the Broken Beard universe. The guy could put out a polka record and I’d still tell you about it because everything he touches (Screaming Trees, The Gutter Twins, Soulsavers, etc.) turns to pure grit, which is what makes his collaborations with Isobel Campbell so great. She, former member of indie pop band Belle & Sebastian, is innocence incarnate, the Scottish girl-next-door with the porcelain voice, and he is the brooding American desperado at the end of the bar. Put ‘em together and you get an old suitcase full of black and white photographs, tear-stained love letters, faded memories, long distance calls from a phone booth in the middle of nowhere, and wordless nights on a porch swing. Hawk, their third album together, is a whole barn full o’ jukebox flare, rustling up a roving range of country-folk, blues, soul, gospel, and Americana, calling to mind the eras and auras of Cash and Carter, Dylan and Baez. Campell’s songwriting on Hawk is utterly moving, playing emotion better than any instrument on the album, and is at once light, languid, deep, and desolate. To help the mood along, the album also offers a few Townes Van Zandt covers and a couple of appearances by Willy Mason. But, as always, this is the Campbell and Lanegan show, which continues to be the strangest, most beautiful show on earth.
Check out the video for “You Won’t Le Me Down Again” from Hawk!
Mark Lanegan Band
Social Distortion
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan