I threw this on again today. Twice. It's still so damn good I thought I'd bring it up in case some of you like minded folks may have missed it back in aught four. Don't be swayed by the team effort he released this year. My taste of the Lanegan/Isobel Campbell album from this year bored me almost to the point of being a cutter, but this album is badass.
Before I get to the review I found from the Guardian, does anyone have any input or recs on Lanegan's previous work (to my knowledge I've only heard his cover of Skip Spence's "Cripple Creek") or anything on Screaming Trees, which I don't believe I've delved into much at all. Thanks, gang.
Mark Lanegan Band; Bubblegum 4/5
Alexis Petridis. Friday July 30, 2004. The Guardian.
Authenticity in rock is a knotty subject, back on the agenda thanks to Joss Stone's Mercury Prize nomination. No sooner was the shortlist announced than voices began complaining that Stone's own voice cannot be genuine. The 17-year-old sings in a manner that suggests nobody knows the trouble she's seen, when the only trouble she has seen back home in Devon involves the closure of the local sub-post office.
That sort of thing really shouldn't bother anyone: after all, knowing that David Bowie is not actually a homosexual fascist demagogue from outer space hardly spoils your enjoyment of Ziggy Stardust. However, if it does, you might consider Mark Lanegan a suitable antidote.
"Did you call for the night porter? Smell the blood running warm?", he croaks over a tinny organ on When Your Number Isn't Up, the opening track on his sixth solo album, Bubblegum. The song depicts either a botched suicide or a non-fatal overdose. Lanegan's vocal style fits perfectly. Ravaged, raddled, redolent of hard-won experience, his voice sounds like something dreamed up by the Department of Health in order to scare people off smoking.
Unlike Joss Stone, Lanegan sounds like that for a reason. A heroin addict since his teens, his story encompasses prison, homelessness, the sorts of jobs that must have made prison and homelessness seem cushy (one involved repossessing electrical goods from gun-wielding trailer park denizens), and so many stays in rehab he presumably qualifies for some kind of loyalty card. His former outfit, Screaming Trees, were luckless grungers prone to violence: Lanegan once offered to shove Liam Gallagher's head through a wall. Most recently he joined dysfunctional rockers Queens of the Stone Age. Performing his solo number Hangin' Tree on stage, Lanegan achieved the remarkable feat of making his bandmates look wholesome by comparison. Those bandmates, it should be noted, included Nick Oliveri - bearded, tattooed and given to performing in the nude.
Lanegan once called his bluesy solo work "death dirges". From its matt black cover inwards, Bubblegum never stints on the dark stuff. There is drug-induced despair and failed romance, with music to match: sibilant drum machines that recall 1970s art-punks Suicide, dolefully minimal guitar figures, shrieking feedback and the unmistakable wail of PJ Harvey on backing vocals.
Even the most hopefully titled song turns out to catalogue misery and disaster. Wedding Dress suggests anyone foolhardy enough to marry Mark Lanegan should make every effort to prevent him writing his own vows, lest your guests end up shrinking in terror and storming the exits. "Would you walk with me underground and forget all my sickness and sorrows?" he growls. "Will you visit me where my body rests?" He probably forgot to book the florist as well.
At its bleakest and least tuneful, Bubblegum is powerful enough to take your breath away. Whoever let QOTSA frontman Josh Homme loose on a drumkit was inspired. His graceless wallop lends unpredictability to the fantastic Hit the City - a song also blessed with a bassline that virtually leaps out of the speakers and challenges you to a fight - and a remarkable ballad called Come To Me, diseased and sensual in equal measure. As the latter track proves, Lanegan has beautiful melodies to spare, occasional chinks of light amid the darkness. One Hundred Days may well be the most charming and touching song ever written about prowling around a red light district - admittedly not the most hotly contested category in the world, but you get the idea. Sideways in Reverse reveals a skewed humour: as it rages along on two chords, it becomes increasingly apparent that Lanegan is singing about cunnilingus.
Bubblegum occasionally suggests that Lanegan has borrowed some sort of Bumper Book of Junkie Cliches from Spiritualized's Jason Pierce (Jesus regularly shows up high on the mainline), but that voice can deliver the most hackneyed lyrics as if they are imperative. More often, though, the album is wildly original. Lanegan can dredge up some startling imagery: drugs make him "stretch like bubblegum", bad news causes him to go "down like a satellite". The cacophonous and unsettling Can't Come Down appears to be influenced by drum'n'bass, of all things.
In the past, Lanegan has been cursed with a kind of acclaim that makes you wonder if you wouldn't be better off buying something else. His previous albums have been big with the Americana fraternity, which these days seems less like a recommendation than a dire warning. Kurt Cobain was a fan, but as anyone who sat through something unspeakable by the Melvins on Cobain's say-so will tell you, the late Nirvana frontman's seal of approval does not necessarily ensure a wonderful listening experience. It is hardly user-friendly, but Bubblegum is too good an album to languish in the margins. There is something thrilling in its unpredictable lurches between darkness and light, noise and melody. In every sense, Bubblegum is a staggering record.
