LISTEN TO IT #46: FUNERAL FULL OF BLUES

[defrog]

Mark Lanegan is one of those people I have a lot of respect for, but don’t listen to much. I liked Screaming Trees but wasn’t a huge fan, and I haven’t paid much attention to Lanegan’s solo work. In fact, I’ve only really taken notice of him via the various side projects he gets involved in (The Gutter Twins, Soulsavers, Isobel Campbell duets, etc), and let’s admit – if you need a voice that sounds convincingly worn down enough by drugs and jail time to sound like the dark thing hiding under yr bed, Lanegan is yr man.

Still.

So when his new solo album Blues Funeral came out, I hadn’t planned to follow up on it. But then I was in a music store in Barcelona where it was playing over the PA, and that got my attention.

I’m told Blues Funeral is way more influenced by Krautrock than Lanegan’s previous stuff. It certainly sounds like it, though of course it’s got the kind of heaviness that you’d expect on a Lanegan project. And it works much of the time. Not for an entire album, maybe. But it’s where the Krautrock/electronica influence dominates the proceedings that it sounds the most interesting.

I don’t know how I’ll feel about the album by the end of the year, but for now, some of these songs bear repeat listening.

The opening track, for example.

Honest it’s true,

This is dF