Last year’s Blues Funeral saw Mark Lanegan produce what may very well been the best album of his career and finished high on critics end of year lists. He has decided to follow this with a collaboration with blues musician Duke Garwood. Unfortunately the result is one that seems more like a bit of a vanity project than a new album.
The gravelled voice mixes well with Garwoods guitar but there is a slight hint of selflessness about it. Instead of having any soul, the results are rather clinical and don't provide any meaning as to why these songs were written. There are moments which rise above the norm but not very often.
Highlights are a stunning ‘War Memorial’ which funereal imagery could easily have fitted on last year’s album and the slowburning ‘Mescalito’ which brings to mind Lanegan’s earlier work with Screaming Trees. Both are classic Lanegan that take you into a nether world of death and blues. The rest of the album just doesn't match.
‘Cold Molly’ is probably the nadir of the album. Completely out of place with its electronic beats and stuttering vocals, it is jarring and unmatched. Maybe on another album this would have worked but then the lyrics are simply a pastiche and you find yourself despairing of its worth.
This is made up by ‘Death Ride’ with its devil imagery but it's too little too late really for an album that could have been so much more. Having set the bar so high this is certainly not one of Lanegan’s best efforts and can be filed under disappointment.
