It is always a pleasant surprise and a bit of a WTF? when I discover a musician or band that I should have discovered sooner than I do. In the case of Mark Lanegan, I’m particularly confounded that I missed the boat on this cat. With a pedigree that includes being a founding member of Screaming Trees, a tenure with Queens Of The Stone Age and collaborating with Belle And Sebastian’s Isobell Campbell as well as releasing a half dozen solo albums of his own, Lanegan is someone I should have been aware of. Well, better late than never.

As I type this, I’m listening to Lanegan’s new release Blues Funeral and I’m feeling the kind of rush that has become rarer and rarer for me when it comes to rock and roll, that moment when my cells start humming like a tuning fork struck by the hand of God.

The title Blues Funeral evokes something that the album really doesn’t deliver, thankfully. This is not a blues album and it certainly ain’t funereal. There may be a bit of New Orleans’ voodoo in the mix, but mostly the album radiates an expansive melancholy and dark mysticism that reminds me of Nick Cave, Jackie Leven, Peter Murphy, Scott Walker, Daniel Lanois and P.J. Harvey. And those are just reference points. Lanegan is his own beast and deserves to be approached on his own turf. But if any of the musicians I just mentioned float your boat, expect to set sail on the surge of Lanegan’s beautiful wake.
 

Blues Funeral in full is streaming here.