Mark Lanegan Band
Bubblegum

The miracles of modern technology allow us to have in our hands an advance copy (a term now familiar to many of us, you know what I mean) of the new album by Mark Lanegan, former Screaming Trees member, and now also a former guest of the ubiquitous Queens of the Stone Age.

Intrigued by the nearly unanimous first enthusiasm - I said nearly - and trusting due to the quality guarantee represented by the name of the artist in question, now reaching his sixth solo album, we don't hesitate to insert the CD into our player.
When Your Number Is Up opens the album, immediately connecting to the EP Here Comes That Weird Chill, published at the end of 2003 by Beggars Banquet, mirroring its direct and quirky sound, with the voice in clear dominance over the instruments, which somehow reminds us - but with the proper proportions - of the moody Syd Barrett, rather than a Tom Waits, to whom Mark perhaps copied the haircut, and the vocal style, now having become very personal in any case.
We proceed with highs and lows, and anticipating the final judgment, I believe I can say that those who were blown away by the old albums will continue to be with Bubblegum (despite the attempt to mask the songs with the sound anticipated in the EP, the 15 pieces offered here, as they are composed and structured, are fundamentally always those of the previous albums), while those who appreciated him as a great interpreter, but decidedly not a first-rate musician and artist (where would Lanegan be today, without the substantial help from his Seattle friends and now, the Californian desert, who over the years have allowed him to set up as many as 6 albums and an EP?), will continue to think that he is a great singer, but if he hasn't achieved much success in a period when even everything coming out of Seattle was selling at least 1 million copies, there was a reason. And it lies in the fact that in melodies, the good Lanegan is certainly not a phenomenon.
The album does not shy away from participating in the trend of various and diverse guest appearances by illustrious and non-illustrious figures (always the same ones?) such as Greg Dulli, Nick Oliveri, Josh Homme, PJ Harvey, Duff and Izzy from Guns n' Roses, Chris Goss, Dean Ween, Natasha Shneider, Alain Johannes...

But the main question mark is above all the structure of the songs which, fine, the dirty and spartan sound is alright, the now-recognized peculiarity of his voice is fine, but they are decidedly static, flat: when you expect a track to evolve in some way, for example, with a change of tempo, melody, not to mention with a distortion, but at least with a bridge/middle 8/... the song ends in fading, leaving a bit of a bitter taste.

Within the album, there is a feeling of the old West, thus not forgetting the now not-so-recent episodes of Lanegan's Scraps At Midnight, particularly in the splendid Strange Religion, simple guitar arpeggio, Hammond organ, vibrant bass, refined choirs, a beautiful song. The folk fragment of Bombed is also good, but Mark, after several mid-low level songs like, for instance, Can't Come Down, chaotic and melodically not exactly refined, raises his head again only at the end, where he lays a triptych of tracks that increases the average value of an album from which much more was expected, given the premises. Head, Driving Death Valley Blues, Out of Nowhere would already alone be worth the price of the CD, and they bring us back to a Lanegan above the average of today's rock singer-songwriters - although he is only partially one.
Among the guests, the most appreciated presence to our coarse ears was without a shadow of a doubt Polly Jean Harvey, perhaps because she's the only one who had a clear opportunity to stand out, with her delicate voice perfectly integrated into the album's context.

Bubblegum is an album that doesn't really move the boundaries of a still excellent Lanegan interpreter of some great folk and rock pieces built with the classic winning form of the years past, but for this very reason, it should leave unsatisfied those who, at the sixth album, and after the collaboration with QOTSA, were expecting an album with more substantial songwriting or at least revised and not just personalized in the sound.