Veteran of Violins

Raindrops on roses, bright copper kettles, something about fingers and mittens and sex kittens tied up with string. I may have misremembered the lyrics* but I was entertaining myself today wondering how Mark Lanegan would cover it.

Raindrops on hobos and inhuman binges 
Bright dealers' Mercedes and glinting syringes
Cheap rotgut wine and acts of random violence
These are a few of my favourite things

Oh, he’s a one is Dark Mark**. Well today we welcome Dancey Prancey Mark, sort of. We are tuning back to the heady pre-pandemic days of 2019 and his album Somebody’s Knocking.

Credited to Mark Lanegan Band, I walked a mile in the pouring rain one lunchtime to pick up a copy of this album the day it was released, which is almost a Lanegan lyric in its own right^. Most of the usual collaborators are present and correct, Alain Johannes, Greg Dulli, Martyn Lenoble and all the boys in the band.

No stranger to a bit of a dabble in dance music via Soulsavers and 1537 fave Lanegan track ‘Ode To Sad Disco’, Somebody’s Knocking is something different again. This time the good ship Lanegan has set sail for 80’s Manchester indie/dance and assorted other reference points such as Sisters of Mercy; throbbing bass lines and crystalline synth chords ahoy!

The album lopes into view with ‘Disbelief Suspension’ and there it is, my favourite voice draped all over a frenetic beat, moaning about (I’m guessing) drugs/risk/dependence/fluffy bunny-wunnies. It works an absolute treat too, a thrillingly jarring juxtaposition. It doesn’t hurt that the segue into the tuneful ‘Letter Never Sent’ is so sweetly accomplished.

We go full Andrew-Eldritch-in-a-graveyard-swathed-in-dry-ice-backlit-in-blue-lights on ‘Night Flight To Kabul’. It is great, suddenly I’m 17 again, wearing black and carving band logos on my school desk.

The road gets darker from here, ‘Dark Disco Jag’ touches on Joy Division and other merciful releases, the drum machine sound is just so righteous and nighteous for this one. ‘Gazing From The Shore’ is an odd one, really messy verses, oddly controlled choruses; it jangles my nerves a bit. Luckily ‘Stitch It Up’, revs up and takes off the horizon at a fearsome rate of knots, I’m not so sure the lyrics would pass a drugs test though.

The second side of Somebody’s Knocking closes with the dark ballad of ‘Playing Nero’, which sounds seductively like someone sinking beneath the waters for the final time.

So exactly half way through the LP everything is looking rosy, but sadly the New Order-lite of ‘Penthouse High’ (and that’s not meant as any kind of insult) aside, there is nothing worthwhile for me stretched across the remainder. I have given Somebody’s Knocking a lot of listening over the last week, looking for anything else to enjoy on the 6 remaining tracks and I just can’t. The songs are constructed from all the same elements I enjoyed before but they just aren’t as well written or accomplished.

It is an odd way to find an LP, half great, half middling. It is an even odder way, to my ears, or sequencing an album too. Surely, you open with a banger and then share the goodies out? or shorten it? add some violins and suchlike? ah well, all the LPs I’ve ever recorded have been perfect.

Still, Somebody’s Knocking is a tremendous amount of grave-dark, rave dark fun and that’s the point of it. If you can’t have a good sepulchral chuckle at the darkest parts of your psyche, then why bother boyo? I recommend it heartily and halfily, there are some real kicking kicks to be had here.

So whilst the LP is not quite up there in my favourite things, Mark Lanegan’s voice always will be and he is in damned good voice here.

Late eighties vibes and dry stone walling 
Blue coloured vinyl and sepulchral growling
Trekking to buy vinyl when the rain is a'falling
These are a few of my favourite things

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I have a nice blue vinyl edition of Somebody’s Knocking but I do have to say that they could have pushed the boat out a bit more on the art front, a picture would have been nice in the gatefold, something other than just lyrics on the inners too?

1124 Down.

PS: The blog title comes from a line from Mr Lanegan’s recent autobiography where he describes himself as ‘veteran of violence’, it just cracked HMO, Jim and I up, as such a daft line; true though.

PPS: I like the post-apocalyptic vibe of this one:

*sorry Julie Andrews.

**Lanegan released a couple of insanely limited festive singles under this moniker. He has a sense of humour about the whole hellhounds-on-my-trail thang.

^as pointed out by Jim.