Mark Morton is best known as a guitarist with US metallers Lamb of God. They’ve been going for three decades, established and successful, at the more extreme, thrashier end of the spectrum, but still achieving Top Five albums on the Billboard charts.
He’s also been developing a solo career. His debut, 2019’s Anesthetic, was straightforward heavy rock, featuring names such as Mark Lanegan and Chester Bennington, but his follow-up is more interesting, a riff-tastic dive into southern boogie, tipping its hat to The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
There are guests throughout again, but this time they include the likes of American country star Nikki Lane and Americana staple Jason Isbell. This isn’t to say that on Without the Pain Morton has suddenly gone full Nashville honkytonk. He leavens his country tendencies with proper head bangers, such as “Nocturnal Sun”, featuring Mastodon bassist-vocalist Troy Sanders and blues-rocker Jared James Nichols, and the sludge-metal stomp of the title track.
Elsewhere, though, songs such as “Kite String”, featuring country singer Travis Denning, is an acoustic love song, boasting impressive guitar pickin’, and closer “Home”, with Denning again, is an AOR ballad. Last year Morton published an autobiography, detailing, among much else, his struggles with addiction (Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir). He touches on these issues in cuts such as “The Needle and the Spoon”, with Neil Fallon of blues metallers Clutch (“I’ve been feeling so sick inside/Got to get better, Lord, before I die”), and (possibly) the catchy southern boogie of “Brother”, with outlaw country singer Cody Jinks.
The album is at its best when he plays that southern boogie card. Highlights include the chugging “Dust”, with Jinks again, and the ZZ Top-ish “Hell & Back”, featuring Jaren Johnston of The Cadillac Three. “Forever in the Light” is also notable, albeit as a grungey psyche-smeared plod more like Soundgarden than Creedance Clearwater Revival.
With his second album, Morton settles into his solo career, proving he has the chops to convincingly go to new places, somewhere different from the day job. He also plays a seriously mean guitar.
Below: watch the video for "Brother" by Mark Morton featuring Cody Jinks and some serious beards
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