Gargoyle (2017)

I'm a little embarrassed but more surprised than anything to realize it's been nearly 20 years and four albums since I checked in with Mark Lanegan. He doesn't sound much different, which might be a little underhanded to observe, but I like what he does and it's easy to make a habit of listening to this album regularly, the way Field Songs worked the last time, or Whiskey for the Holy Ghost or The Winding Sheet before. It's doomy and moody and full of dramatic gesture, modulating sound levels the way grungers always like, granite faces to the powerful north wind, rock band, eternity, etc. Bring in the goats. As always, Lanegan is willing to let it swell up with keyboards, strings, and of course big guitar chords, counterparting with his rumbling whiskey soak vocal. And he does get to emotional moments, affecting ones. The songs are often rich with juicy melody too, as in the epic "Nocturne," with its Joy Division flourishes and surrender to all that is lovely. Gargoyle topics under consideration: death, drinking, mysterious mirrors, midnight encounters, holy love at will, setting the sky on fire, reeling empire, Paul Bowles scenes under a stark tropic moon (or the equivalents as rendered from drug haze). There's much more in the way of keyboards on this album than I recall from Lanegan before, straying toward Ultravox by way of Philip Glass on "Blue Blue Sea," for example. The album is not always hitting on all cylinders and can go flat in places, which only means it's a typical album in a lot of ways. "Nocturne" might be the only song that really sends me, but there are some whompers that can get you one way or another, either with sweet wheedling or blunt force, such as "Emperor" (lifting from Iggy Pop's "The Passenger") and the convincingly bittersweet "Goodbye to Beauty." The finish is "Old Swan," the last and longest song on the album, which sets up a pretty big play, martial rhythms and swirling guitars spiraling higher, higher. "Take me in your arms, let me live again." Yeah, there we go. To the stratosphere and a long fade. Must have something to do with Zeus.