Mark Lanegan Band
Here Comes That Weird Chill

THE REVIEW

....it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats, it's a bass that turns and a drum that beats.

This is the classic record that needs to be listened to from the end to be understood. A circular record, circular like a blues, obsessive like its author, full of mental spaces and so simple in its guitar, bass, and drum playing, or rather just guitar and voice, as in the most intimate moments of the record (On The Steps Of The Cathedral). So basic that even live, these days in Bologna and Milan, it resonates simple but intense and full, without leaving any response space to a listener.
It is a splendid obsession, this brief album of just thirty minutes, which once finished, must start over again to be fully absorbed. Repeated sound compositions that spin on themselves like the bass loops of "Sleep With Me" or the guitar riffs of "Clear Spot", never tiring the ear of those who let themselves be carried away by this intimate sonic journey.

"Message To Mine" seems to echo, in a dark version, the best Beatle-esque Oasis, but then after the ballads, it’s Keni Richards' piano that provides a solitary sonic counterpoint to Mark's hoarse voice in "Lexington slow down," and it feels like listening to the best Nick Cave.
The dirty blues that always resonates, sometimes asking for a thought to Tom Waits ("Wish You Well"), sometimes a toxic piano chord to Cave or a guitar loop to Lou Reed, drags me into the whirlwind of dark, obsessive, circular passions, in a loop that endlessly restarts and never ends in "Sleep With Me", where Lanegan, giving his best, invites us to watch over a nightmare that plays, plays, plays and repeats itself like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats, like a bass that turns and a drum that beats....