Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Feb 3, 2012Taken as a whole, it's a marvellous piece of work, boasting a rare congruence between lyrical themes and musical evocations, and fronted by one of the most broodingly characterful voices in rock music.
-
MojoFeb 1, 2012[An] outstanding piece of work. [Feb 2012, p.92]
-
Feb 7, 2012This is a confident, bold and captivating record, and one which is dominated by that beguilingly ragged voice.
-
Feb 2, 2012Ultimately it's impossible not to get swept away by the emergency room blues of Leviathan, or the electro-swamp-psychedelia thrum of Tiny Grain Of Truth and not marvel at Lanegan's damaged genius in the process.
-
Feb 9, 2012Mark Lanegan has accomplished something truly magnificent with Blues Funeral.
-
Q MagazineFeb 21, 2012It's the curveballs, rather than the reliable Lanaganisms that make Blues Funeral such a powerul return. [Mar 2012, p.101]
-
Feb 9, 2012The man could turn a Sesame Street sing-along into a deathbed confessional. "With piranha teeth / I've been dreaming of you," he moans here with typical cheeriness on opener "The Gravedigger's Song," a throbbing, reverb-heavy swirl that... feels like the sort of love song someone might write just before pushing their lover in front of a train.
-
Feb 8, 2012Collaborations with Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, Lanegan's fellow Gutter Twin Greg Dulli and original Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons inject a little more heavy and sleaze to his rock.
-
Feb 8, 2012While most of the album passes by in an oddly comforting, narcotized haze, Lanegan is not above grabbing the devil by the wrist, pushing the pedal to the floor, and throwing down some bare-knuckled hard rock like few others know how.
-
Feb 7, 2012Lanegan blends his most satisfying and heady aural brew to date.
-
Feb 6, 2012he's made one of his strongest, and certainly his oddest, albums.
-
Feb 6, 2012He appears to have been hoarding his best material for his first solo album since 2004's Bubblegum, because Blues Funeral has quality to spare.
-
UncutFeb 3, 2012It is Lanegan's most accessible to date. [Mar 2012, p.83]
-
Feb 1, 2012A mighty voice of formidably expressive multitudes, here given room to roam, and to roar.
-
Feb 8, 2012As a singer and songwriter, Lanegan's range is so much wider and deeper than anything the vast majority of singer/songwriters can touch, and his fearlessness remains devastatingly affecting.
-
Feb 6, 2012A funeral is a termination, but can also be a clean slate. Lanegan completely "gets" that duality--and wields it expertly.
-
Feb 1, 2012The spotlight stays fixed on his darkly soothing intonations throughout, keeping the smoky, low-key aesthetic unvarying despite some stylistic and instrumental adventurousness.
-
Mar 12, 2012Blues Funeral generally succeeds because Lanegan knows exactly what his audience wants and is willing to play to his strengths.
-
Under The RadarMar 21, 2012Confirms what we already know. Mark Lanegan is worth his weight in musical gold.[Mar 2012, p.85]
-
Feb 9, 2012A creative and fitting nudge out of the comfortable shadows and back into the harsh spotlight-where Lanegan belongs, at least some of the time.
-
Feb 9, 2012Points in a direction that he'd almost certainly be wise to follow on future projects.
-
Feb 7, 2012Blues Funeral, while an adventurous, strident, and complex album, will likely polarize longstanding Lanegan fans; but if they can't follow him into this new terrain, it's their problem.
-
Feb 27, 2012Minus usual vocal sidekicks Isobel Campbell and Greg Dulli (who appears briefly on the vintage drum-machine jam "St. Louis Elegy"), Lanegan's chafed baritone works best with bold backdrops.
-
Feb 21, 2012The album is at its most successful when Lanegan allows these alien textures [electronics, atmospheric guitar] to take a more prominent role in his songs, providing a counterfoil to his gravelly rock vocals. Elsewhere the songs meander too much for the album to coalesce into a convincing statement.
-
Feb 10, 2012Though the grappling guitars of 'Riot In My House' wouldn't seem out of place on an MC5 album, Blues Funeral doesn't always kick out the jams.
-
Feb 10, 2012[The album] is essentially a standard Mark Lanegan Band release.
-
Feb 6, 2012Recorded in Hollywood, which figures - there is a near-visual sense of overstatement to the bleakness.
-
Feb 2, 2012[It] contains no great shocks: for the most part, this is bluesy, lugubrious, modernish rock, elevated by Lanegan's remarkable gravel-pit of a voice.
-
Feb 2, 2012While most would expect nothing less from a Mark Lanegan Band LP, the end result is a record for ardent fans and not casual admirers.
-
Feb 7, 2012Though a mixed bag, Blues Funeral does have its moments.
-
Mar 6, 2012Lanegan remains a master of mood, his baritone croon one of rock's most inviting instruments. But even that voice can't patch over the weak spots on this inconsistent album.
-
Feb 7, 2012Lanegan's voice may be timeless, but its versatility has its limits--and Blues Funeral tests those limits just a little too much.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 19 out of 22
-
Mixed: 3 out of 22
-
Negative: 0 out of 22
-
Jan 17, 2013
-
Apr 26, 2012
-
Mar 15, 2012