Right after I graduated high school, I had a job at a mom‘n’pop pizzeria just around the corner from my house. Friday night closing shifts were always insane, as we would sweep, mop and count money until three in the morning. Once the last customer was out and the door was locked, we often listened to Mark Lanegan’s Whiskey For the Holy Ghost. Its save-my-soul wailing always calmed our rattled nerves as we wound down the night. Sixteen years later, I still remain a fan of Lanegan’s early solo work and other projects, such as the Twilight Singers, so I was happy to find my next review involved the crusty old grunge singer. This time around, we find Lanegan working with Rich Machin on the Soulsavers’ Broken, a project that has been described, among other things, as “electronic” music.
Now, I certainly don’t work in marketing, but I can’t figure out why anybody in that profession with their head screwed on halfway would tout this as “electronic” music. Sure, “Unbalanced Pieces” has an old school hip-hop breakbeat kicking along, but such does not “electronic” music make; furthermore, there is no other evidence of an electronic release thereafter. So, now that we have that settled, let’s dissect this album.
The opener, “The Seventh Proof,” is a pretty bit of piano and sets hopes high, but then “Death Bells” quickly squashes those hopes. The guitar work appears to strive too much for a The Bends-era Radiohead feel, but sounds more like second tier grunge-stoner rock. As with any time Lanegan steps to a microphone, his vocals are great, but aren’t met with complimentary music. Lanegan can front many styles, but this up-tempo guitar solo wanking just doesn’t fit, as there are no blues to match his voice of sorrow and drunkenness. As a nail in the coffin, “Death Bells” even has that sick over-reliance on rock maraca.
On to “Unbalanced Pieces”: everything seems forced (save for Lanegan, who is now out of place, however), such as the quasi Southern Baptist choir backing vocals. If I’m to believe that Lanegan, my beloved Holy Ghost crooner, is leading some congregation of snake handlers, then the music need be much dirtier, more earthy, as if it had just labored its fingers through cotton-parched soil all day and then come home to drink and sing. While I pine for this, it appears out of nowhere with “You Will Miss Me When I Burn.” This simple, creaky, wood-floored piano and sparse, candlelight cello lament is perfect for Lanegan’s call to the heavens from the depths of the damned. Hell, even the chorus is a perfect “When you have no one, no one can hurt you” and the choir backs beautifully. In fact, if Machin and friends had aimed to make a record centered around simple, yet compellingly soulful songs like “You Will Miss Me…” then listening to Broken would be a joyous occasion; something to anticipate giddily.
And “Some Misunderstanding” starts out following this suggestion. It’s as if a bunch of stoned, wandering musicians had finally found a groove they could agree upon. Scratch that. About three minutes in, the guitars-that-shall-not-be-denied-solos decide to drown their old friend the organ and with it most of the song’s soul. As if that weren’t enough, the choir steps around the corner to finish the job off like some spaghetti Western anti-hero, gunning down any last hopes of salvation. It’s an aural bloodbath. By now, I’ve lost any interest in what remains of the record that could have any redeeming value. The guitars-that-shan’t-be-denied-solos have run a spear through that last shred of interest.
Ironically, I began to feel the choir wouldn’t be so bad backing Lanegan if the music were more fitting (see “You Will Miss Me…”). Broken is the musical analogue of peeling off all the stickers from a Rubik’s Cube and re-applying them to make the appearance of a solved puzzle. Or perhaps it’s like smashing Legos and Duplo blocks together until they relent and stick together. I’m not trying to be mean, I just want words to illustrate the over-arching feeling that one listener got from this album. There certainly are, however, elements, songs even, that work. “Can’t Catch the Train” is one such song, which returns to the simple beauty of “You Will Miss Me…”
Sadly, my closing thoughts are as follows: if I were sitting in the studio with these cats and had any sway, I would vigorously urge them to stick with what worked wondrously in the few tracks I positively mentioned above, as well as the instrumental “Wise Blood.” And honestly? I would continue by imploring them to scrap the other parts of the project altogether.
-Gabriel Bogart