There's none more black than Mark Lanegan but the grunge survivor is also willing to send himself up royally. Read our review of Gargoyle
Like he’s keeping very good company at a black country lock-in with The Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen, Mark Lanegan gazes out from the darkness on another album of bent outta shape folk and scalding blues rock.
Gargoyle (and how self-effacing is that title?) is a monster for sure but the former Screaming Trees and QOTSA anchor also further refines the motorik beats and dance floor friendly territory of his last few albums, including 2012’s ferocious Blues Funeral.
With his extraordinary baritone overwhelming even the mammoth sound here, Lanegan operates in a world of charred landscapes, ghostly apparitions, and "the heavens opening to bleed".
However, It’s not all bleak introspection and gruff self-analysis: there are moments of grace too, the most unlikely being on Drunk on Destruction which is not quite the hell ride the title suggests but a rather beatific moment of rueful self-reflection in which Lanegan even throws in some only slightly unhinged la la las.
The high and lonesome Goodbye to Beauty reveals wounded vulnerability aplenty but there’s more of that clangorous industrial goth on Beehive, a real career-high rejoicing in a killer pay-off line worthy of The Jesus and Mary Chain: "honey just gets me stung"
There’s blood and guts on the studio floor for sure but with the terrific final track Old Swan, Lanegan leaves town in a trail of dust leaving us wanting more.
Alan Corr @corralan
Mark Lanegan, Royal Blood and Otherkin play support to Guns n' Roses at Slane Castle on May 27
