Mark Lanegan Band | Blues Funeral

Mark Lanegan returns with his first album in his own name in almost eight years, though he has collaborated with everyone from Queens of the Stone Age through Greg Dulli to Isobel Campbell since 2004’s Bubblegum. Blues Funeral as a title could have been plucked from a random Mark Lanegan album title generator, though what lies with in is rather less predictable.

It opens with The Gravedigger’s Song (see Blues Funeral!), a track which sets a nightmarish atmosphere through pulsing bass & guitars, and Lanegan’s rasping voice. Many tracks have melodies which hark back to his days in seminal rock band Screaming Trees. Bleeding Muddy Water’s stately lament is an example of this, with Lanegan singing “lord now the rain done come”. The anthemic St Louis Elegy, with Dulli on backing vocals, is in a similar vein, possessing a soaring melody over a gently pulsing drum machine, and a damn fine vocal performance.

Strangely some of the album’s more uptempo moments are lesser lights. Josh Homme’s heavy riffs on Riot In My House are perfectly serviceable, but Quiver Syndrome is less convincing, sounding a little too close to The Dandy Warhols’ Bohemian Like You for comfort.

Many articles have referred to Mark Lanegan’s embracing of electronic, which reaches its zenith on Ode to Sad Disco. This track bears no resemblance to anything else in his 25 year back catalogue. It’s an unashamed electro floor-filler, albeit a dark one, and is a stunningly brave move. Harborview Hospital is equally keyboard-reliant, in a sort of Bowie way. It’s great to see him experiment like this.

But the album also features plenty of the kind of tracks Lanegan has always excelled at. Brooding death ballads like Phantasmagoria Blues, Leviathan and Deep Black Vanishing Train are full of doomed longing, the latter featuring some particularly fetching flute and guitar from David Catching.

So not a complete reinvention, rather a distillation of Lanegan’s different collaborations over one album, and a showcase of an artist at the very top of his game. To paraphrase WH Auden’s poem Funeral Blues: “stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…” and listen to this album.

Killian Laher

Tracklist:

1. The Gravedigger’s Song
2. Bleeding Muddy Water
3. Gray Goes Black
4. St Louis Elegy
5. Riot In My House
6. Ode to Sad Disco
7. Phantasmagoria Blues
8. Quiver Syndrome
9. Harborview Hospital
10. Leviathan
11. Deep Black Vanishing Train
12. Tiny Grain of Truth

Released o7 February 2012.