Mark Lanegan, one time Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone age member, collaborates on this surprisingly strong release with Isobel Campbell, of Belle & Sebastian fame, titled Howl. While these two seasoned veterans originate from different ends of the rock spectrum, three albums in their unlikely union yields some of its most positive results.
The album tip-toes in with a mournful duet, “We Die and See Beauty Reign,” Lanegan quietly rumbling like an unnoticed earthquake while Campbell whispers airily beside him. The piece leads as a statement of the poetic weight of the album. It’s gentle but stormy like low rolling thunder, as you might describe most of Lanegan’s career. Hell, look at the album cover of The Gutter Twins! But with Campbell, Lanegan seems like he might actually be having some fun (can’t blame him), as “You Won’t Let Me Down Again” comes saddle-blazin’ in the opener’s wake, more representative of the wide open country feel of the album. Lanegan takes coarse command while Campbell supports like a lingering but still very present ghost.
While the duo’s juxtaposition remains consistent, the space they cover spans considerable ground. Though plenty bluesy, “Come Undone” is the type of waltz you’d expect from an R&B revivalist like Alicia Keys, though many many octaves away. “Hawk” plays like the soundtrack to the bar fight in Roadhouse, fresh with slide guitar and honking sax solos, though no Swayze to break it up… In one of the most chilling and attention grabbing songs of the album “Sunrise,” Isobel takes a dimly lit spotlight over a quivering guitar on what can be described as nothing less than phantasmal. Later, Lanegan hits achieves contrastingly supernatural low notes on the gospel number and album closer, “Lately” with choir support.
The variation aside, the album’s best moments and more common refrains remain its folk songs. And like the best folk lyrics, at times the album unveils worldly truths with quick turns like, “Time is a fast old train/she’s here and she’s gone and she won’t come again/so won’t you take my hand?” Occasionally they do fall short in over-simplicity, such as on Snake Song, “You can touch me/if you want to/I got poison/I just might bite you.” But that might be swept beneath the acoustic blues riff, clanging banjo and the foot-stomping for many. Elsewhere lyrics discuss love, rivers, and more trains. The good stuff.
Hawk doesn’t bring any radical ideas to the table, but then again, folk and bluesy alt-country don’t exactly have a knack for progression. Anachronistic and transporting would be better words, and Hawk achieves just those. Parallels to Robert Plant’s recent collaboration with Alison Krauss are probably appropriate, especially given Hawk’s residence in a common genre. Though given both Lanegan’s and Campbell’s quiet demeanor (and lower-profile), Hawk is the tale that will likely be less told and deserves a closer listen.
- matthew hunt
