Review: Mark Lanegan, Bubblegum

Mark Lanegan is not a sentimental man.

That may come as a surprise to people who are used to his smoky, crooning voice caressing lyrics like "Almost called it a day so many times/ Didn't know what it felt like to be alive/ 'Til you been a friend to me, like nobody else could be" from his upcoming album Bubblegum. The simple truth is that his lyrics, his voice, and his music are deeply emotional refrains for his fans.

But Mark Lanegan is not a sentimental man.

He breaks from his past with barely a look back. In recent interviews, he barely nods at his previous albums—whether the solo works with Mike Johnson or the earliest work as the singer for Screaming Trees—and always seems to prefer to look forward to new opportunities. That may be a strong survival trait for a man who has been making music for the better part of twenty years and has seen the seedier side of rock and roll from center stage.

Only a few fans and musicians might have imagined that Lanegan would be one of the few remaining "grunge" artists still making music. Somehow, through the deaths of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Curt Cobain, and Layne Staley, there was Lanegan surviving it all. His own addiction to heroin and his arrest for possession of crack cocaine are well-documented; his altercations with members of Oasis and Trail of Dead are legendary. What was less known was that throughout it all he kept up a steady stream of solo albums showing a rare musical depth and sound completely at odds with his grunge image.

Usually referenced as some strange mix of blues, folk, country, rock, and pop sensibilities, albums like Whiskey for the Holy Ghost and Field Songs earned him a small, devoted following. These fanatics knew something that the rest of the world just now seems to be realizing: Mark Lanegan is the owner of one of the finest voices in rock music. Deep, earthy, and surprisingly versatile, his is the kind of distinct voice that most other singers would be happy to trade their souls for.

That's all in the past, though. For Lanegan, what is interesting is what happens next. For now, that means Bubblegum, the strangely titled (it makes sense only when you’ve listened to the song "Bombed") new release that seems poised to launch him to new level of fame.

Just released in Europe, and poised for an August 10 release here in the United States, Bubblegum is already garnering the kind of good press usually reserved for names of a much larger stature. His record label, Beggars Banquet seems intent on making sure that Lanegan is noticed, and the music press seems happy to help the cause. With good reason, it turns out: Bubblegum is brilliant.

From the oddly disjointed opener, "When Your Number Isn’t Up," returning fans will know that this isn't business as usual. This isn't the soft country rock of I’ll Take Care of You's opener "Carry Home." This is organ and drum beat in the foreground with a scratchy electric guitar buzzing in the background while Lanegan sings a dark little song about what sounds like a drug overdose. "When the sun is finally going down, and you're overdue to follow/ But you're still above the ground" he sings against that bleak backdrop. From that point, the listener is on notice: this is anything but easy-listening pop music.

Then it gets good. PJ Harvey joins in to sing the backing vocals on the rocker "Hit the City," a song far better than almost anything else you'll hear on the radio stations these days. The two voices--hers soaring and sweet, his all gravel and sex—work incredibly well together. Vocally, they were made for each other.

What follows, "Wedding Dress" is the sickest, most disturbing pronouncement of love that you’re ever likely to hear. Lanegan’s voice has an immediacy that is hard to deny when he sings "Will you be shamed if I shake like I'm dyin'/ When I fall to my knees and I'm crying?/ Will you visit me where my body rests/ Will you put on that long white dress?" What makes it stranger is when you find out that the angelic voice in the background is Wendy Rae Fowler, Lanegan's ex-wife. Apparently, the split came after she had recorded backing vocals on a number of the songs.

Most of the CD progresses like that—from strength to strength, building until you realize that this album is special. Only a few songs let down the proceedings. The second PJ Harvey duet, "Come to Me" has a sensual feel to it, but moves along so slow that it doesn’t quite catch fire, and "Can't Come Down" seems to stumble along, never hitting its stride.

But those two songs are small glitches on an album of thirteen other brilliant efforts.

Lanegan may have never recorded a more beautiful song than "One Hundred Days," a slow, lush ballad. Musically, it is perfect with little guitar touches and a sensuous bass line moving in the back. One listen to this song in my cubicle was all it took to have co-workers walk up to find out who the artist was. "Strange Religion" duplicated the feat with its simple, pop rock melody and sweetly rendered lyrics.

In fact, those two songs alone would be worth the price of admission. It's really only gravy that you get the disturbingly intimate and barren "Bombed," the hard rocking "Sideways in Reverse" and the latter-day psychodelia of "Morning Glory Wine."

Working with the likes of Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri (Queens of the Stone Age), PJ Harvey, Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers), Izzy Stradlin, and Duff McKagan (Guns n' Roses), nothing is precisely what you would expect. While the other artists offer their own talents, the star of the show and the atmospheric center is still Lanegan’s voice and view of the world.

The strength of that view, though, is that it never crosses into a self-indulgent pose. Where most bands sing of drug addiction with a faux angst that grates, Lanegan sings something that feels like the truth. His delivery is never overbearing or moralizing, just honest even to the point of admitting that he doesn’t really want to leave those drugs alone. At least, not entirely.

On "Driving Death Valley Blues," Lanegan admits that he doesn't "want to go cold turkey" in a song that moves long with an intense groove that will get the listener’s entire body grooving with the beat. Hard, fast, and sporting drum flourishes that thrill, this is a song that shows the influence of Lanegan's time with Queens of the Stone Age, but is still owned by his particular musical aesthetic. Coming as it does after the gorgeously radio-friendly "Head," this is an album that retains all of the hallmarks of Lanegan’s entire musical catalog while taking aim square at new listeners.

Whether it works is anyone's guess. Lanegan doesn't have a media-friendly personality or a poster-friendly face. What he does have, at an age when most rock artists are slowing down, is an almost arrogant willingness to put out rock music that conforms to his own personal vision—and, love the album or not, manages to make the youngsters look like poseurs.

In one album, he manages to lay claim to being the real inheritor of the blues on "Little Willie John." Then he turns around and offers up post-punk hard rock in "Sideways in Reverse." To top it off, he gives us the tender "Strange Religion" and never loses the sense that this is one solid, purposeful album from beginning to end. In fact, Bubblegum just begs to be listened to all the way through.

Who said the album format was dead?

Bubblegum, this oddly titled masterpiece, ends with a song seemingly inspired by Sergio Leone’s movies. "Out of Nowhere" acts as the perfect ending to the album as Lanegan sings "As it begins so too it ends" over what sounds like the perfect soundtrack to any of those old films.

This is an album well worth the space in anyone's collection—a refreshingly straight-forward look at rock and roll and blues that never feels mired in the past. It draw from those influences happily, but without being overly sentimental.

And it comes back to that. Mark Lanegan isn't a sentimental man—at least not in any public sense. Music lovers should be thankful for that favor. Where, in the hands of someone of lesser voice and weepy maudlin emotions, this album would seem to be a farce. It would be overwrought and laughable.

In the hands of Lanegan, though, it is deeply affecting and personal, but never overly dramatic. Glancing at the past isn't a bad thing, but the music, the lyrics, and, seemingly, Lanegan's outlook on life are rooted in looking to the future. Dark as the album may be, that outlook still lends a feeling of determined hopefulness.

Highly recommended.

Posted by zombyboy at August 4, 2004 01:01 AM | TrackBack