By Erik Ehlert
Sometimes you need a funeral to remind yourself of your gifts. And Mark Lanegan keeps giving.
The Mark Lanegan Band this week dropped a new album, “Blues Funeral,” the first solo work from the 47-year-old singer-guitarist since 2004. It’s the perfect vehicle for his brooding baritone, filled with rock dirges composed by a man with a quality in his voice that cannot be faked.
On Thursday night at the Echoplex — his band’s first date before embarking on a European tour — Lanegan gave a show every bit as dark as his album.
The procession began with “The Gravedigger’s Song,” and within a verse we are treated to the shades of black that Lanegan’s poetry illuminates. “With piranha teeth / I’ve been dreaming of you / and the taste of your love so sweet,” turns quickly into “the dark heavy rain / where the gravediggers song is sung / you’ve been torturing me.”
There is no ironic cleverness in his work; instead, it is refreshing to hear someone lay emotions bare and communicate with such power and honesty. “If tears were liquor / I’d have drunk myself sick” from the gorgeous “St. Louis Elegy” conveys this feel.
Another dirge, “Deep Black Vanishing Train,” gives us the lyric “transfixed by what isn’t seen,” conjuring up late nights around a table filled with empties. “Bleeding Muddy Water” reaches back to the long line of blues that he builds on, speaking in metaphor and speaking to the man himself, his deep growl trolling for some answers that may not come. The blues are dead. Long live the blues.
But lest anybody forget that Lanegan knows how to rock, his band unleashed some desert rock on “Riot in My House.” Through his work with Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age and his brilliant collaboration with Isobel Campbell it is obvious that this is a musician that brings his unique voice to whatever music inspires him. The constant is his distinct vocals, a whiskey-and-cigarette, world-weary delivery, and they even work over some programmed beats and keys, in “Ode to Sad Disco.” He also treated his fans to “Wedding Dress” from his strong 2004 solo album “Bubblegum.”
And after an hour-plus of hearing music sheathed in darkness, the sold-out Echoplex crowd filed out of the club and into the night. Where it felt almost light.
Photo by Ramzi Essaid
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great review! Was that Isobel Campbell duetting with Mark on a few tracks?
No Isobel is a blonde with a sweet voice. It has been confirmed that it was Shelley Brien. She toured with him for Bubblegum and also sings on Quiver Syndrome :)
Hope she comes to Australia!