New album: Phantom Radio
Artist: Mark Lanegan Band
Label: Flooded Soil/Vagrant
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Former Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan has spent the last 15 years or so carving out a divergent solo career. He’s also earned a reputation as a serial collaborator after making well regarded albums with Queens Of The Stone Age, Isobel Campbell, Soulsavers and Duke Garwood.
The rustic, menacing voice that graced all of those great Screaming Trees songs (see “Disappearing” and radio hit “I Nearly Lost You”) is still intact. Lanegan’s voice is truly original, but for those demanding a template think Jim Morrison with a healthy splash of Tom Waits. Musically, The Screaming Trees toiled in aggressive psychedelia that was marketed as Seattle grunge. On “Phantom Radio,” Lanegan furthers the experiments he began on 2011’s “Blues Funeral” and ends up with a spooky yet rewarding hybrid.
With a voice like Lanegan’s, the obvious move would be to pare him with gut-bucket blues players. On “Phantom Radio” his musical comrade Alain Johannes plays guitars, keyboards, flutes, percussion and just about every thing else. Other musicians contribute, but Johannes seems to be the lead architect for the music. Even though there is a heavy electronic component to “Phantom Radio,” with Lanegan’s voice and dark-as-coffee lyrics in the mix it sounds like a modern blues record.
This “bluestronica” experiment works best on songs such as “Seventh Day,” which isn’t far removed from Alabama 3’s “Woke Up This Morning” that was used as the theme to The Sopranos. Although it’s evident from his voice that Lanegan is as tough as nails, he’s gifted enough to wrap his voice around melodic and even shimmering chord progressions and melodies. “Waltzing In Blue” wouldn’t be out of place on a Moby album, and Lanegan skillfully turns it into a cosmic gospel number of epic proportions.
For all of the album’s scope the best song may be the spare “I Am The Wolf,” written by Lanegan and Duke Garwood. The song is driven by an almost flamenco guitar figure and soaring strings, all while Lanegan turns in possibly the most nuanced vocal of his career.
Longtime Lanegan fans will love “Phantom Radio,” as will anyone interested in fresh sounds.
Classic album: The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
Artist: Wes Montgomery
Label: Riverside
Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Seen by many as the successor to influential jazz guitarist Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery was a true innovator in his own right. Horn players such as John Coltrane and Charlie Parker were generally regarded as the trailblazers of jazz, but Montgomery garnered the same notoriety for his six string work.
Montgomery’s smooth yet stern phrasing has yet to be surpassed in jazz or any other genre. His fluid playing on Sonny Rollins’ “Airegen” may sound like standard jazz now, but at the time it was revelatory. It wasn’t that Montgomery could play so many notes so fast without making a mistake; it was that he could do both of those things while making the instrument dance.
On the smoother side of the street, Montgomery’s silky performance on “Polka Dots And Moonbeams” has been an influence on everyone from George Benson to Derek Trucks. On his own compositions such as “West Coast Blues” or “Four On Six,” Montgomery proves himself a lyrical player with intent on serving the song. There’s no noodling here, but it would also be wrong to refer to Montgomery’s playing as economical.
If anything, Montgomery knew when to pour on the gas and when to step back and let the song simmer. His death at a young age has only added to his legend and “what could have been” status, but albums such as “The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery” are a testament to the indelible mark he left on jazz and popular music in general.
Jon Dawson’s books available at www.jondawson.com.
Jon Dawson’s album reviews appear every Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com.