It seems absurd to place Mark Lanegan as a man of sunshine. And yet, so much of his music was made with desert scene players that he must have been drawn to it. 

Home is where the heat is? Maybe.

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Anyone who knows Bubblegum knows Methamphetamine Blues. Alongside Hit the City, it’s one of the rock-action peaks from that 2004 album and here, on the preceding Here Comes That Weird Chill EP, it gets prime position: track #1. 

Driven by an electro-clank machine pulse, the Methamphetamine Blues groove is anything but bluesy. Fumes and distortion are the order of the day, more workshop grind than back-porch swing, with a sumptuous cast of backing singers teasing a gothic, seductive touch. Despite the huge cast, the loops and the near-constant lead guitar streams by Josh Homme and Dave Catching, it’s controlled … like a lot of Lanegan’s work. Containment, no histrionics. This one revels in taut compression.  

On the Steps of the Cathedral, a hymn-like confessional with surround-sound Lanegan choir and a muted beat, fades in/out with the ghosted air of a Masters of Reality interlude – fitting, given the presence of Chris Goss – before the amps strike back for Clear Spot. It’s a faithful cover, maybe even an unadventurous one given Beefheart’s many outer limits, but it lends itself to the same mechanised distortions as Methamphetamine Blues. For that reason, it works. Let’s rock.  

But from here, a looser vibe takes hold and the EP’s subtitle Methamphetamines, Extras & Oddities rings more true. Deen Ween brings the heat haze with his just-off-enough guitar solos through Message to Mine before the mood turns a 180 with this:  

“Break my heart and hope to die
before Lexington could slow down.
They say a chariot’s waiting
when you get cut loose.
The place starts swinging
when it’s me on the noose.”

When those words get spoken in Lanegan’s heaviest baritone over rain-sodden piano, they cut through everything. 

They sound too true. You believe. Lexington Slowdown is a double-take moment that reorients your listening and elevates the EP because this is where the already obvious quality shifts to next-level. This EP is what made Bubblegum a must-buy the following year. And this EP is probably why I’m more a Lanegan Band casual than a completist because, honestly, nothing else captures Mark Lanegan in rock mode as much to my own liking as fully as this does.      

If Lexington is pivotal then Skeletal History is definitive. The Voice leads, of course, but with alien interference crackling down the left side, desert dry riffs on the right and storm-brew bass and skittish beats locked down the centre, there’s no shortage of elements. No chorus, just flow, an ongoing slow eruption as a storm slowly builds. Explosions darken the track’s fadeout. Played like this, the music sounds less like a band than a telepathic convergence of forces. Vast, wide-open and ominous.

Wish You Well lightens the tone with a droning ebb and flow before Sleep With Me continues the Skeletal History vibe – but this is like the tentative calm after the threat has receded. Adrenalin slowing. Reprise extends Sleep With Me, softening further with immaculate bass lines while guitar distortions break the spaces around Homme’s dubby beat. 

In some ways, it’s harder to see this EP as the Mark Lanegan Band than the album that followed. His name is in the spotlight sure, but the smaller cast of core players – the desert hands like Alain Johannes, Dave Catching, Chris Goss, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri – knit together like low-ego equals drawing on more than just the music. Maybe it’s their shared histories that make the difference. Maybe the tunes with Nick Oliveri just turn out differently (he plays on more here than Bubblegum). Maybe it’s nothing more than presentation: a bunch of looser experiments being given their own space to run. Whatever it is, something extra comes through in the way this EP flows and hangs together. 

Is it a Desert Session in all but name? 

Possibly, yes. And if so, it’s the most consistent of the bunch – the lack of joke tracks and guest singers make for a darker, more focused mood – and the one that fits Lanegan’s voice best.    

If you lapped up Bubblegum but somehow missed this … track it down: a small trove jammed with riches.     

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NEWS – Bubblegum reissue out soon, includes Weird Chill
Just found out about this by chance today – Bubblegum is being reissued deluxe-style in August with Here Comes That Weird Chill (and other rarities) included on bonus discs, all for the 20th anniversary. Timing or what? Check Piccadilly Records for more.