Mark Lanegan Band 'Blues Funeral' review (for kevchino.com)

Blues Funeral is the latest album to hit the airwaves from the Mark Lanegan Band. His seventh release, and first release of new material in eight years, it would make you think he couldn’t go wrong. But alas, you’d be wrong. Unlike its title suggests, it lacks any semblance of what is generally considered blues, unless the actual death of blues is what he was going for (hence the funeral).

Lanegan’s deep, sultry, smoky vocals are the only thing that holds the album together, along with the one standout track, “The Gravedigger’s Song,” which opens the album with a gritty, heavy bass line, eerie guitars, and spooky synthesizers—a walk of the damned, if you will. After this, the album falls apart like a decomposing corpse. “Riot In My House” and “Quiver Syndrome” are two good basic rock songs, but lack any standout riffs or the edginess we’ve witnessed from the band on albums past. “St. Louis Elegy” features some nice Latin-esque country guitar riffs in the chorus, which would prove handy for a Mexican standoff, and “Deep Black Vanishing Train” is a quieter, moodier piece, with some nice deep vocals and haunting cellos to match. But though the aforementioned are bearable, it seems most on the album are not.

“Gray Goes Black” does nothing of the sort and stays a banal and bland shade of gray. “Ode To Sad Disco” is exactly that—sad, contains elements of disco, and goes for 6.24 minutes too long. And “Tiny Grain of Truth” completely misleads, with any true musical talent being lost in over seven minutes of hippie, trippy, esoteric synthesizer improvisation that makes you wonder if the machine simply got stuck on a loop.

The primary track is exciting and outstanding, which makes the rest all the more disappointing. An avid fan of his past work, it pains me to say it, but I wouldn’t even play this at a funeral.

Jens Lekman 'Having An Argument With Myself' EP review (for kevchino.com)

See the original article HERE!

Popular Swede Jens Lekman's new release, a 5 track EP entitled 'An Argument With Myself', seems to be exactly that. A short and sweet work with heavy 80s reggae influences the EP is lyrically laden with witty, descriptive personal descriptions of Lekman's life.

Title track 'Having An Argument With Myself' follows his train of thought as he stumbles home after a night out on the town through drunken backpackers on the city streets, lamenting over issues with his partner. 'Waiting On Kirsten' appears to be an ode to an unrequited love as well as to the city of Göteborg, describing a city that has come into itself and changed for the better - "And the VIP lines are not for the clubs, but for healthcare, apartments and jobs" - but unfortunately the relationship with Kirsten does not follow suit. 'A Promise' is a more funky sounding yet still 80s influenced track with an almost easy listening feel, as is with following track 'New Directions'. Ending with 'So This Guy At My Office' Lekman sinks into pure and simple reggae and depicts a conversation at the end of the day between two loved one's - "The day starts when you get here, and ends when you leave". 

And there you have it - a basic, descriptive, blow by blow account of the latest Jens Lekman EP, which seems to be the basic ethos of this whole offering. While the lyrics are interesting and cleverly written it does feel as though Lekman has simply sat down with a Casio keyboard, hit the Reggae setting and blurted out whatever was on his mind at the time. The songs have a sweet storytelling quality about them, but overall come across as quite uneventful and trivial. While I'm sure there is feeling and passion there the songs are delivered in such a way they could almost be classed in the Easy Listening/Elevator Musak genre.