Isobel Campbell

Those who liked the moodier, more atmospheric material on the last Mark Lanegan Band offering, 2004's Bubblegum, will find much to enjoy on Blues Funeral – an album that has little to do with blues as a musical form. Lanegan has been a busy man since Bubblegum. In the nearly eight ensuing years, he's issued three records with Isobel Campbell, joined Greg Dulli in the Gutter Twins, guested on albums by the Twilight Singers and UNKLE, and was the lead vocalist on most of the last two Soulsavers offerings. Produced by Eleven guitarist Alain Johannes (who also fulfills that role here as well as playing bass, keyboards, and percussion), Blues Funeral finds Lanegan in a musically ambitious place.

The history of the Screaming Trees goes back to 1985 when brothers Van Conner on bass and Gary Lee Conner on guitar teamed up singer Mark Lanegan in rural logging town Ellensburg, Washington State in 1985. After recording a handful of EPs and LPs for various US indie labels, including SST and Sub Pop, they signed to Sony imprint Epic Records for 1991’s “Uncle Anaesthesia”, co-produced with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell.

Although finding mainstream success with the release of “Sweet Oblivion”, and the single ‘Nearly Lost You’ from the soundtrack to Cameron Crowes’s film “Singles”, the Screaming Trees’ history goes back to 1985, predating many of their Grunge-era, Seattle peers.

Blues Funeral finds Mark Lanegan drawing inspiration from the past six years, which saw the former Screaming Trees front man collaborating with Belle and Sebastian's Isobel Campbell, Queens of the Stone Age and the Twilight Singers, and forming the Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli. Blues Funeral, Lanegan’s seventh solo album and second under the attention-diverting Mark Lanegan Band moniker, rings like the death knell for the singer’s early acoustic-based work, with returning producer/musician Alain Johannes (Eleven, Queens of the Stone Age) and legendary drummer Jack Irons helping Lanegan to further flesh out his favored brand of dead-slow rock.