Confessions of a Fanboy

Despite being my favorite album from someone who at times has been my favorite artist, it’s been a really long time since I listened to Mark Lanegan’s 2001 effort Field Songs in its entirety.  I’ve listened to favorite tracks from it from time to time, but it’s been awhile since I started at “One Way Street” and traveled the narcotic, ambient, sinewy path to “Fix.”  It’s an amazing sonic and emotional journey and it’s one I need to take more often.

I wish I could summon the mental focus to describe each step in the journey, but that’s a bit too ambitious for a coffee-and-nicotine free morning.  That is one thing about listening to most of Lanegan’s records:  even the most militant non-smoker will be reaching for a pack of Camel non-filters.

Field Songs is a meditative record filled with simple pleasures.  There are lovely ballads, dark confessionals, and ambient experiments.  There are traditional singer/songwriter elements and sonic flourishes from far away places.  Lyrically, the album is dense and impenetrable.  The dark sounds and Lanegan’s worn croon create perfect moments of dark obsessions and misery, but there’s more than that.

I’ve now listened to it twice and I may not listen to anything else today.  If I can clear some of the cobwebs and sweep up the fragments in my mind, I really need to go through this one track-by-track.

Filed under: Tags: Mark Lanegan