Lanegan, Mark: Straight Songs Of Sorrow (2xVinyl)

When considering any great work of art, be it a painting, a novel, or a piece of music, it’s natural to wonder what might have inspired it: ‘the story behind the song’. Mark Lanegan’s new album, Straight Songs Of Sorrow, flips that equation. Here are 15 songs inspired by a story: his life story, as documented by his own hand in his new memoir, Sing Backwards And Weep.

The book is a brutal, nerve-shredding read, thanks to Lanegan's unsparing candor in recounting a journey from troubled youth in eastern Washington, through his drug-stained existence amid the '90s Seattle rock scene, to an unlikely salvation at the dawn of the 21st century.

There's death and tragedy, yet also humor and hope, thanks to the tenacity which impels it's host, even at his lowest moments.

Today, Lanegan is a renowned songwriter and a much-coveted collaborator, as adept at electronica as with rock, constantly honing his indomitable voice: an asphalt-laced linctus for the soul. While the memoir documents a struggle to find peace with himself, his new album emphasises the extent to which he came to realize that music is his life.

Straight Songs Of Sorrow also features guest appearances from Greg Dulli, Warren Ellis, John Paul Jones, Ed Harcourt and more.



Tracklist

I Wouldn't Want to Say
Apples from a Tree
This Game of Love
Ketamine
Bleed All over
Churchbells, Ghosts
Internal Hourglass Discussion
Stockholm City Blues
Skeleton Key
Daylight in the Nocturnal House
Ballad of the Dying Rover
Hanging on (For Drc)
At Zero Below
Eden Lost and Found