CD Reviews

Mark Lanegan Band | Blues Funeral

4AD (2012)

By BARRY THOMPSON | January 31, 2012

3.0 Stars

Unlike a few of his early '90s Seattle contemporaries who made tons of money, erstwhile Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan has not died, put out shitty records, or made a self-deprecating cameo on Portlandia. Although plenty of surviving Gen-X standard-setters have faded into ironic nostalgia, Lanegan, even at his worst, remains interesting. Within the past five years, alliances with Greg Dulli (as Gutter Twins), shadowy UK duo Soulsavers, and Isobel Campbell have yielded superbly murky results. The Gutter Twins' Saturnalia (2008) and Soulsavers' Broken (2009) are awesome, but Lanegan's first solo mission since 2004 is only pretty awesome. The spotlight stays fixed on his darkly soothing intonations throughout, keeping the smoky, low-key aesthetic unvarying despite some stylistic and instrumental adventurousness. "Bleeding Bloody Water" drags, and "Ode to Sad Disco" invites an unfavorable comparison to the Faint. But the awesome — ghoulish electro-punk love lament "The Gravedigger's Song," bar-band-ish rocker "Riot in my House," and whatever the heck is going on during the pleasantly trippy "Leviathan" — outweighs the unawesome.

Review: Joyful Noise
There's not much joy but there's plenty of noise of the rafter-rocking gospel singing variety in Tony Graff's musical dramedy.
Alex Chilton | Free Again: The ''1970'' Sessions
Post–Box Tops and pre-Big Star, Alex Chilton was an 18-year-old Memphis boy on his way to his dual identity: former #1 pop hitmaker, perpetual underground hero.
Cardinal | Hymns
After a nearly two-decade silence, chamber-pop duo Cardinal emerge from their near-mythic hibernation with the sleepy-eyed, Beatles-underwater gem "Northern Soul," which crawls out of the speakers as if to say, "Yeah, we've been gone since 1994 — but really, don't mind us!"
Snow Patrol | Fallen Empires
Word on the street had Snow Patrol looking to change up the big anthem sound for their sixth release.
O'Brother | Garden Window
O'Brother's bio for their debut album, Garden Window, reads in part: "Native American tradition believed taking a picture of someone also took a piece of their soul. O'Brother views this album in the same vein. It captures a piece of them at a time in their lives that they will never get back."
Guided by Voices | Let's Go Eat the Factory
The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory' s label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up.
Brite Futures | Dark Past
A few years ago, the cutesy teens in Natalie Portman's Shaved Head slid out of Seattle on the hot pink shoulders of robo-bounce kinda-hit "Me + Ur Daughter" and the cheap intrigue of a ridiculous moniker.
A Place to Bury Strangers | Onwards to the Wall
Onwards to the Wall clocks in at 16 minutes and 35 seconds, and it could shatter into smithereens at any moment.
Cloud Nothings | Attack on Memory
With Attack on Memory , the third full-length from Cleveland-based Cloud Nothings, 20-year-old frontman Dylan Baldi approaches new, drastically darker material with the same empty-bottle angst that made his previous releases so appealing.
You Me at Six | Sinners Never Sleep
Sinners Never Sleep is a transitional album, though such efforts rarely bode as well for the future as this does.
Imperial Teen | Feel the Sound
Like its title, fifth album Feel the Sound is as generic as doubters have probably always assumed — they sound both relaxed and exhausted.
Air | Le Voyage Dans La Lune
It was inevitable that Air would one day be asked to soundtrack a colorized version of an iconic 1902 silent French film about moon exploration, right? There's the French thing, the moon thing, the kitsch-cool factor.
Less

Topics: CD Reviews , Music, Gen-X, rating, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY BARRY THOMPSON

HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS | WELCOME OBLIVION | March 13, 2013
Whereas the monsters and ghosts of NIN songs can scream in your face and rip you to bits with their fangs, Welcome Oblivion tracks like techno-folk haunter "Ice Age" and the doom-pop jaunt "How Long?" make uncredited cameo appearances in your nightmares until you go insane and eat your own hands.

JOHNNY MARR | THE MESSENGER | February 25, 2013
Going solo is rarely a good decision. For every exception to the rule of who flourishes after unburdening themselves of the half-talents that have been holding them back — Justin Timberlake, for one — there are dozens of embarrassing Dee Dee Ramone rap albums that exist because Joey and Johnny Ramone weren't around to kibosh a terrible idea.

WHAT'S F'N NEXT? BUKE AND GASE | January 29, 2013
Almost every person I've told about Buke and Gase assumes that they'll hate this band, which isn't their fault.

BLEEDING RAINBOW | YEAH RIGHT | January 23, 2013
The only defect of the sort-of-but-not-really debut from Bleeding Rainbow (no longer called Reading Rainbow, possibly due to litigious ire festering under LeVar Burton's genial television persona) is that the Philly foursome merely hop off the launching point forged by Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and a handful of others from the oft-exalted grunge era.

10 THINGS I WISH I KNEW BEFORE I STARTED PLAYING IN BANDS IN BOSTON | January 25, 2013
We hear you just moved to "the Bean", and you're thinking about starting a real life rock-'n-roll band! Here's a bunch of bullshit you should know about.