MARK LANEGAN BAND

A new one, GARGOYLES, and it’s standard Lanegan fare.  Which means it’s good, verging on very good, and it has some exceptional moments.  There are always some clunkers on any given Lanegan product to keep it from being a stone cold classic, but the guy knows what he’s doing. 

BLUES FUNERAL was, for me, a high point.  PHANTOM RADIO was pretty sweet, too (and the remix disc was interesting).  His early solo stuff (before he added “Band”) was much the same way.  WHISKEY FOR THE HOLY GHOST was the highlight, SCRAPS AT MIDNIGHT wasn’t too shabby either.  BUBBLEGUM, I think, was the first one attributed to the MLB, and it was a good way to kick things off.  The covers albums are fairly meh.

I haven’t delved into all of his side projects, but his work with Soulsavers was quite tasty.  The Isobel Campbell collaborations weren’t too bad, but Queens of the Stone Age have never impressed me.  I must be missing something there, because I keep reading about what a rocking band they are, but they’ve always sounded tame and over-produced to me.  Oh well.

And what about those Screaming Trees?  UNCLE ANESTHASIA and SWEET OBLIVION I will gladly label as stone-cold classics, but how the hell did they get there?  You’d be hard pressed to put together a decent  40 minute set from all of their indie albums.  Just very generic and uninteresting.  And then the fighting and the heroin and the blah blah blah, and DUST was a huge fucking letdown……  Gah.  I’m glad he got it back together to keep his post-Trees career moving along.

I’ll have to listen to the FINAL RECORDINGS cd again soon.  I think I liked it to some extent.

So let’s just say BLUES FUNERAL, then PHANTOM RADIO, then GARGOYLES.