MARK LANEGAN
I'll Take Care Of You - SUB POP

first appeared in CMJ New Music Report, Issue: 636 - Sep 20, 1999
by Jordan N. Mamone


Mark Lanegan has one of those voices. Kurt Cobain had one. So did Jim Morrison and Ian Curtis. But the Screaming Trees singer is a more versatile talent than those great snuffed hopes; his tormented and husky, yet somehow soothing growl suits both his band's raging psych rock and his three previous solo endeavors' harrowingly quiet, country-tinged material. The stark, largely acoustic I'll Take Care Of You proves that he's just as capable of mastering other people's music. The singer covers a perfectly chosen host of roots-punk, folk, blues and R&B songs, wears them like a pair of faded jeans, saturates them with smoke and booze, and lives in them, internalizing their celebrations and tragedies. Given the fates of the aforementioned, equally passionate performers, thank Jehovah that Lanegan and his desperate pipes are still alive and putting out records.


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