Mark Lanegan, a rock’n’roll version of the high plains drifter, gives the same laconic, unwavering performance no matter who he finds himself on stage with. Whether he is locked into sensitive duetting with the Scottish singer Isobel Campbell, or fronting a rowdy rock band such as the Gutter Twins or Queens of the Stone Age, he simply stands stock-still, clutching the microphone stand, and delivers his lines in a deadpan, leathery growl.
The Washington-born singer was at his most static and wraith-like at the Garage as he applied his time-honoured method to a set of mostly new songs that he had co-written with the British group Soulsavers for their third album, Broken. The band, which is the brainchild of the production and remix duo of Rich Machin and Ian Glover, still classify their music as “alternative/electronica/soul” on their MySpace site. Thanks in no small part to Lanegan’s influence (he also contributed to their last album), they have nowadays turned into a distinctly old-fashioned alt.rock guitar ensemble.
Glover was nowhere in sight, while Machin played discreet rhythm guitar at the far right of the cramped stage. Next to him, Rich Warren (formerly of Starsailor) played lead guitar, soloing with heroic grace on numbers including Some Misunderstanding and an unlikely cover of ZZ Top’s Jesus Just Left Chicago. At times like these they sounded like Neil Young’s band Crazy Horse or the Southern rockers Drive-By Truckers, not names you would normally associate with an English electronica act.
Lanegan, meanwhile, plumbed new depths of lugubriousness with lyrics to songs such as Death Bells and You will Miss me when I Burn. “Under the needle tree/ The ghosts of you and me/ They sing the saddest song/ Just one last breath and gone,” he intoned in a rumbling, graveyard drawl. Immobile, taciturn and lit only from behind by a single line of red spots throughout the entire show, the band settled into an ever darkening groove and stayed there, a masterful concept no doubt, but not a particularly engaging spectacle for those sweating it out on the uncomfortably rammed floor in front of the stage.