Blues Funeral is only the second full album to be credited to the Mark Lanegan Band (following 2004’s minor commercial breakthrough Bubblegum), but it follows on from a near unbroken string of long players with his involvement that stretches back to Screaming Trees’ 1986 debut.

Despite its title, Blues Funeral is nowhere near the stark blues album one would expect, and in many places it’s far from a rock album too. At the time of Bubblegum’s release, Lanegan spoke about his lack of interest in replicating blues forms musically, even as his lyrics, as here, address its themes of sin, religion and redemption. His collaborations with Isobel Campbell, easy to overlook as a Nancy and Lee homage, at least showed Lanegan’s listening habits extended beyond grizzled alternative rock circles, and Blues Funeral successfully widens the net of his influences further.

That said, there are plenty of songs played straight enough to satisfy those recent listeners who have come to Lanegan through his Queens of the Stone Age alliance. The Gravedigger’s Song has the relentless drive of Homme’s band, while Quiver Syndrome’s backing vocals recall the ‘Stones, and the psychedelic strut of Riot in my House reanimates Screaming Trees’ acidic squall.

Bubblegum had featured occasional pattering and clunking drum programs, and these return refined on Blues Funeral. On St Louis Elegy and Tiny Grain of Truth their use, as on Bubblegum, is incidental, as if left over from the songs’ demo sketches. But Lanegan evidently has a genuine, craftsman’s interest in drum machines and sequencing, as the gently, skilfully constructed tracks Ode to Sad Disco (crucially non-ironic) and, especially, Harborview Hospital attest.

Here, as his deep vocals rise and fall within the layers of liquid synths and echoing guitar tones, Lanegan creates a new form of gothic American, electronic pop. On an album superficially framed around blues signifiers, this is utterly unexpected and thus all the more welcome.

-Stuart Huggett-