BUBBLEGUM

Description

Mark Lanegan, having somewhat hardened his tone since the early 2000s, notably due to his collaborations with Queens Of The Stone Age, delivers a Bubblegum that is far from easy listening, nor sticky in the slightest. This album opens with the beautiful "When Your Number Isn't Up," a kind of tragic ballad where Tom Waits would have met Nick Cave. Then the tempo picks up with the arrival of "Hit The City," a duet with PJ Harvey, a rock tour de force haunted by Mark Lanegan's hoarse and heavy voice. Tracks like "Methamphetamine Blues" and "Strange Religion," featuring Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme, drive home the point of this virile, melancholic rock, charged with contradictory emotions. The former Screaming Trees frontman, friend of Kurt Cobain, male muse for many aspiring rockers, but also a blues and folk enthusiast, excels here in one of his finest guises: that of a raw poet, never short of subtle and luminous ideas. The songs on Bubblegum have something majestic and unique about them.