Mark Lanegan

[stip]

on first listen this disapointed

i liked bloodline and loved in the pines, though

[chewm]

The first 3 tracks of this don't do much for me for now. I enjoy the rest.

[stip]

im the opposite - the first half was decent, the second half not so much

[LetMeSleep]

I'm down to this and I've started to enjoy it.

Old Swan
Nocturne
Goodbye to Beauty
Drunk on Destruction
First Day Of Winter

[stip]

I've gone through three listens and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. This ranks towards the very bottom of his solo output for me, and I thought Phantom Radio was a fair bit better - a more consistent listen from start to finish with a few genuine high spots. There are some good songs on here (Beehive, Black Swan, and Big Blue Sea) but nothing is great, and there is a sameness to the record that is unappealing. The listen feels longer than it is.

The music is generally interesting, and in some songs genuinely great (like Beehive). Mark doesn't really have any particularly impressive vocal performances, though it's not that he sounds bad or anything. But there are no great hooks, and in cases the writing is genuinely bad. There is a sameness to Mark's writing, but it is usually evocative, if somewhat predictable. This is just lazy and in some cases just flat out bad. For instance, look at this verse in 'Death Trip to Tulsa'

The lord made me a poor man
The lord made me a thief
A thousand miles of midnight
To shine beyond belief
It's my last trip to the corner
Now how am I gonna breathe?
A child upon this wasteland
The teeth of the disease

Standard Mark fare, but some really powerful images in there that play into the apocalyptic desolation of the song. Compare to Beehive, a song with fantastic music and a decent vocal melody that is hamstrung with this

Beehive, beehive
Honey just gets me stoned when I'm living
Bell rung and stung
Honey just gets me stoned
Just gets me stoned

[VinylGuy]

I did like PR but i feel this one is a little bit better, more consistent, more focused work...I hope he can do different stuff, this electronic phase has reached its peak for sure.

[stip]

it does feel less disjointed than PR, but PR had stronger songs, plus a solid supplementary EP

[stip]

I'm going to give this a listen later, but this is a nice mix of lanegan's recent work (if I do say so myself). There's good material here. It's just not coalescing on a single album. This is about an hour start to finish

Death Trip to Tulsa
Floor of the Ocean
Big Blue Sea
Old Swan
Dry Iced
In the Pines
Death's Head tattoo
Sad Lover
The Killing Season
Seventh Day
Beehive
Nocturne
Bloodline
Death Trip to Tulsa (remix)

[chewm]

I really love how he sounds in this album. Something about the vocal performances on Phantom Radio felt really off for me (which is something I never thought I'd say in a Lanegan album, I think it might be the production).
I'm not that much of a lyrics person, but nothing stood out as terrible for me personally. They might feel quite a bit basic and maybe recycled from his early work I suppose.
But the music is so great here. The main riff in Emperor, the instrumentation in Goodbye to Beauty, there are some wonderful things in this album for me.

[chewm]

I hope he can do different stuff, this electronic phase has reached its peak for sure.

definitely.

[stip]

back to thousand miles to midnight - the wild people remix is quite good - still a minor song but better than the original

[chewm]

The Wild People is the only song that I really love from Phantom Radio. It's such an unpretentious song but that one gets me for some reason. I should probably listen to A Thousand Miles to Midnight sometime.

[Fuzzcharger]

I hope he can do different stuff, this electronic phase has reached its peak for sure.

definitely.

I actually thought Phantom Radio would have been the last electronic based record before he mixed things up a bit. That was like the 3rd or 4th in that style and it was starting to get a little samey then.

[VinylGuy]

back to thousand miles to midnight - the wild people remix is quite good - still a minor song but better than the original

I listened to the remix album yesterday, and i have to say, i really liked it. Its pretty awesome.

[stip]

I may have actually liked Seventh Day more than the the PR version, and I really like the PR version. It wasn't a dramatic remix as much as it was an extension of the spring break serial killer vibe the song already had. There are 3-4 pretty solid songs on there. The rest I could completely do without.

[VinylGuy]

Im surprised on how much i like the remixes album.

[stip]

a few more listens and the first four songs really click. none are great but its a solid run of songs. but after that the rest of the album really does nothing for me until black swan. the ballads are not well served by the flat metallic feel of the album

[VinylGuy]

Well i bought the new one on vinyl. Hope the master is good.

Im still very much in love with the remix album of PR.

[stip]

I love DTTT and Seven Days on that thing. I should give Wild People a few more spins. That was good too.

[stip]

Okay, some song by song thoughts

Death's Head Tattoo: I like the way the song sort of starts in process. Does a nice job setting the droning tone the album has. Ominous, droning, with these sharp metallic accents cutting across it. The bit at three minutes (better the devil you know...) feels important. Some of the better lyrics on the album. Solid opener, especially for this album.

Nocturne: I love the music, and the way that guitar part crawls up the spine of the bassline. There are some great musical moments on this album. Lyrics are a bit predictable, and the lyric in the chorus "I can see two X colliding, that's what this sickness brought me to" doesn't sit well with me.

Blue Blue Sea: There's really no other song in the catalog that sounds like this. Given the way these lyrics are both repeated and front and center of the song I really wish they were better. Simply using gothic/religious phrasing doesn't mean you're saying anything interesting, and Mark can do better (I am generally a big fan of his writing). But these are some of the better vocal melodies on the album, and there's something striking and compelling about this song (perhaps its uniqueness) that I can't quite describe that keeps drawing me back to it. The relatively short length of this song (Mark's droning songs tend to go on too long) really helps.

Bee Hive: Probably my favorite song on the album. I can't say enough great things about the music, and how surprisingly playful the song feels without sacrificing the flat griding tone that charactertizes the album. The vocal melody in the verse isn't great, but once it goes into the pre-chorus and chorus it's catchy as hell. The only thing that stops this from bumping itself up to the A list are the lyrics. I really don't like what the chorus says, even though I like how it sounds