MARK LANEGAN
Field Songs (Sub Pop)
Reviewed by John Sekerka

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While the surviving class of Seattle '89 are still squirming under the heavy anvil of grunge, Mark Lanegan has long left that dead horse to the flies and forged an adventurous musical path all his own. Several years and spotty records later, Lanegan has finally found a home for his pen and voice. When he sings "I've drunk so much sour whiskey I can hardly see", it doesn't come off as a piece of macho bravado, stupidity or misfortune, but just a fact. Lanegan's gravelly delivery works as a "been there done that" voice of reason, a storyteller's best weapon. The rough and tumble nature of the material owes much to Tom Waits and Nick Cave in content and delivery, but Lanegan proves to be an original performer to be taken very seriously. It is a distinct extrapolation of the Delta Blues that the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce (co-writer of the wonderful "Kimiko's Dream House") was struggling, ever so brilliantly with.

© 2001 - John Sekerka