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Singer Mark Lanegan has out done himself with Blues Funeral, his latest solo piece coming 7 years after his last album, Bubblegum, released in 2004. A self admitted vocalist for hire, Lanegan was the voice behind Seattle grunge band The Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, The Breeders and UK electronica duo, Soul Savers, just to name a few. This time around Lanegan is working with his own band instead of relying on guest musicians as he has done in the past. The songs on Blues Funeral are self penned and plumb the depths of vast distances between life and death and what happens in between, fleshed out by his ghostly baritone vocals. This electronica with guitars flavored album is peppered with poignant lyrics like “down here the winter will cut you quick/these tears are liquor and I’ve drunk myself sick”. (“St Louis Elegy”). Another: “leviathan waits in the water/skeletons hide in the trees/the hours crawl by like a spider/hangman is following me” (“Leviathan”). Lanegan has created a moving and somewhat disturbing vision of life that makes Blues Funeral his masterpiece, of which each layer unfolds with repeated listenings. Blues Funeral is destined to be a classic.
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