Alternative rock musician Mark Lanegan has announced a new album titled Straight Songs of Sorrow, which is set to be released on May 8th via Heavenly Recordings. The performer has also released a new song from the upcoming project titled titled “Skeleton Key.”

“Skeleton Key” is a lengthy track clocking in at over seven minutes, with a grandiose instrumental, with guitar bass, keys and drums, along with Lanegan’s signature vocal delivery. The lyrics deal with self-loathing and his interpersonal conflicts.

This is Lanegan’s fourth album in three years, following Gargoyle, released in 2017, Somebody’s Knocking in 2019 and his collaborative album with Duke Garwood titled With Animals. He released a music video last year titled “Night Flight To Kabul.” His group also released a music video for the track “Stitch It Up,” featured on Somebody’s Knocking.

This album is based on Lanegan’s upcoming memoir Sing Backwards And Weep, which is set to be published on April 28th. It provides a gritty revelation of his first hand accounts of the alternative rock scene in Seattle during the 1990s, when Lanegan began experiencing his first bout of success with his band Screaming Trees.

“Writing the book, I didn’t get catharsis,” Lanegan stated in a press release. “All I got was a Pandora’s box full of pain and misery. I went way in, and remembered shit I’d put away 20 years ago. But I started writing these songs the minute I was done, and I realised there was a depth of emotion because they were all linked to memories from this book. It was a relief to suddenly go back to music. Then I realized that was the gift of the book: these songs. I’m really proud of this record.”

The album is also set to feature many guests such as Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers, Warren Ellis of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and singer-songwriter Ed Harcourt.

Check of mxdwn’s interview with Lanegan.

Straight Songs Of Sorrow

1. I Wouldn’t Want To Say
2. Apples From A Tree
3. This Game Of Love
4. Ketamine
5. Bleed All Over
6. Churchbells, Ghosts
7. Internal Hourglass Discussion
8. Stockholm City Blues
9. Skeleton Key
10. Daylight In The Nocturnal House
11. Ballad of the Dying Rover
12. Hanging On (For DRC)
14. At Zero Below

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat