This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Mark Lanegan has had one of the most bipolar careers in rock.
For the better part of a decade he gave voice to the high-impact grunge psychedelia of Seattle’s Screaming Trees. Between their albums, he issued solo records that couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed — sombre, introspective ruminations cloaked in the narcotised crooning and gentle acoustic guitars of the sensitive troubadour. Now that the Trees have finally been axed, Lanegan no longer has to divide his psychic energies. That focus pays off on his fifth solo album Field Songs, which flirts with slightly rockier terrain than some previous efforts. Mixing Leonard Cohen’s rasp, Jeffrey Lee Pierce’ desperation, Neil Diamond’s bravado, Jim Morrison’s stoned majesty and Nick Cave’s jaded decadence, Lanegan locks us in the trunk and takes us on a dark journey through the backwoods of his soul on a moonless night. Outstanding.
