If the aim of the new Lanegan/Campbell record was to provide music to eat muffins and drink coffee to, well, mission accomplished. This third collaboration between Ellensburg’s favorite son (The Screaming Trees) and the ethereal ex-Belle & Sebastian song-whisperer is disappointingly harmless.
Rarely do you find performers of this caliber rehashing old ideas. But here, the duo rips off the “Green Onions” bass line (on “Hawk”) and apes Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” on “To Hell & Back Again,” covers a pair of Townes Van Zandt numbers and tosses in some Dylan (the new stuff). By the end, you’ve got something you’ve already heard before.
Mimicry aside, the record is a nice listen. “Time of the Season” is a sweet love song delivered by Campbell. But the gem of the lot is “Come Undone” — a spare number that surprisingly comes across as the soft-spoken cousin of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.”
DOWNLOAD: “Come Undone”
