Gargoyle delves deeper into the former Screaming Trees vocalist’s interest in the English gothic electro-rock of the 1980s, which also fired 2012’s Blues Funeral and 2014’s Phantom Radio. Many of the songs were co-written with Yorkshireman Rob Marshall, and songs such as Nocturne deliver mournful Joy Division bass lines, Echo and the Bunnymen guitar grandeur and Sisters of Mercy-style electro thud. The plangent Goodbye to Beauty could even have sat neatly on U2’s The Joshua Tree, had it been sung by Bono rather than a former heroin addict with a gravelly, dustbowl baritone. Lanegan’s inimitable grumble puts his own distinctive stamp on songs about loneliness and inner demons. It’s dark, but there is a hint of black humour in lines such as: “Everywhere I look it’s a bummer.” The glorious, Bunnymen-esque Beehive uses honey as a metaphor for love, but could equally be a paean to the narcotic effects of the gooey stuff. Bleak or bleakly funny, Lanegan is in the form of his career.
