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Mark
Lanegan Band: Bubblegum
Beggars Banquet, 2004
Rating: 4.5
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Posted:
August
24, 2004
By
Kevin Forest Moreau
When Mark Lanegan began releasing solo albums in the early '90s, he was
still fronting the Seattle-based Screaming Trees, an outlet that, no doubt,
more than satisfied his appetite for hard rock. So his solo oeuvre,
beginning with the excellent tandem of The Winding Sheet and the
exemplary Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, served as a vehicle for
exploring terrain that was at once rootsier and murkier: darkly elegant,
steeped in a swampy miasma of traditional acoustic and blues influences that
proved just as fitting for his honeyed barbed-wire rasp as did sweaty rock
'n' roll.
Given that Lanegan's solo records continued in that vein throughout the '90s
(and up to 2001's Field Songs), and indeed became his main musical
vessel after the dissolution of Screaming Trees, it's tempting to frame
Bubblegum as a reconciliation of two extremes. After all, it does
traverse rocky terrain similar to his short-lived association with
Queens of the Stone Age, even as it showcases the same gift for grim,
dusky balladry as his solo efforts. But that description is an
oversimplification. Bubblegum is more than an a + b equation (in this
case, rootsy solo style + muscular rock). Rather, it's a distillation of the
singer's subtly different moods and modes, a cohesive and comprehensive work
that stands as the most representative look yet at his musical persona.
To the extent that Bubblegum incorporates harder-rocking sounds, it
doesn't rock with the brawny thrash-and-burn of Screaming Trees at
their hardest; the album hews closer to the simmering fuzz-rock intensity of
Queens' of the Stone Ages'
Songs for the Deaf,
most especially on "Driving Death Valley Blues" and the charging "Sideways
in Reverse." "Hit the City" is propelled by a buzzing bass line that
threatens to break apart into static; "Methamphetamine Blues" (also heard on
last year's
Here Comes That Weird Chill EP) clangs with a junkyard-furnace
percussion straight out of Tom Waits' bag of tricks, augmented by thrumming
guitar that occasionally peels off into muted squeals that suggest the
distant howling of unseen predators.
This rock approach, more coiled menace than balls-out primal scream therapy,
fits nicely with the album's dimly spectral ballads and slower numbers,
which nod to Lanegan's previous solo efforts while nudging them into the
serrated territory first hinted at on Weird Chill. The spare "One
Hundred Days" perfectly utilizes the oft-overlooked emotional power of
Lanegan's bourbon-and-smoke delivery, while "Morning Glory Wine" wouldn't
sound out of place on the Trees' masterful swan song Dusk. This
musical terrain both suits and balances Lanegan's dark lyricism, which, at
times, teeters right at the edge of self-parody. ("Will you be shamed if I
shake like I'm dyin' / When I fall to my knees and I'm cryin' / Will you
visit me where my body rests / Will you put on that long white dress?" he
sings on "Wedding Dress.")
Throughout, Lanegan is well served by a rotating cast of musicians (billed
as the Mark Lanegan Band, a signal perhaps of the singer's desire to shake
up his M.O.) including
Polly Jean Harvey; QOTSA's Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri; original Guns N'
Roses members Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan; and Twilight Singers' Greg
Dulli, among others. But it's the singer's hardscrabble voice, poetics and
vision that rank Bubblegum as among his best efforts (solo or
otherwise), a record that heralds a promising and well-received new chapter
in the artist's impressive canon.
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