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!
Set the Dial is the fourth full length from Savannah metal heads Black Tusk, and if you’ve had the pleasure of hearing either of their latter two, Passage Through Purgatory or Taste the Sin, you know exactly the kind of sludge covered punk you’re about to receive (John Dyer Baizley artwork and all). You see, like its predecessors, Set the Dial rumbles its way through murky swamp and crusty gutter to get to where you feel most safe and comfortable only to heap a hell of a lot of petulance and abrasive screams onto you. That being said though, as crumbling, noise-driven attacks, Black Tusk’s earlier efforts thrived on destruction, where Set the Dial‘s objective seems to be one aimed at rebuilding, at harnessing the rust-stained chaos in order to rise to loftier heights. They do this through the coy use of groove, which lays in wait on table-setter “Brewing the Storm” and then busts through the muck and mire to take over songs like “Mass Devotion,” “Set the Dial to Your Doom,” “Resistor,” and “This Time is Divine,” making Set the Dial‘s riff-driven focus the main, albeit subtle, point of difference. At the end of the day though, it’s another grease-charged album of Georgian origin, and one could spend an entire month getting filthy, high, and in trouble listening to Black Tusk and their mates of state, Zoroaster, Kylesa, Mastodon, and Baroness.
Whispering Wild Stories is the third album from French noisemakers Denizen, who thrive on a rare mix of cowboy freedom and back alley boorishness, meaning they roll out endless amounts of dusty and rowdy stoner riffs but shove ‘em in your face with some hardcore attitude instead of letting you bake in ‘em. While Whispering Wild Stories doesn’t quite contain the brilliant animosity of Cursed, the toothless tomfoolery of Maylene, or the Norwegian death roll of Kvelertak, Denizen are able to harnesses the same kind of bloody-lipped urgency of each of ‘em in some way and throw their own wine-drunk, hot rod funk into it as well. Despite the fact this album is self-released, they still managed to snag Nick Zampiello again to master it at New Alliance East in the good ol’ U.S. of A., which no doubt helped shape its eight-song landscape into the motor-driven sewer-fucker it is. Add some sweet cover art by J. Issac and a cover of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and you’ve got an album that’s truly très bien!
Listen to “Casino Royale” from Whispering Wild Stories!
Mark Lanegan Band
Black Tusk
Denizen