MARK MORTON – Without The Pain (2025) *HQ*
It turns out that a change is as good as a rest. For MARK MORTON, the 52-year-old guitarist in eternal metallers Lamb Of God, there’s clearly more to life than massive riffs and sludgy heft, great though he is at those things.
Last year’s purgative biography, ‘Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir’, revealed some of the challenges, physical and mental, that Mark has found a way to survive. His solo material is an outlet, an exorcism for the pressures that are perhaps only exacerbated by being part of such an endlessly pummelling outfit as L.O.G.
”Without The Pain” is Morton’s new solo album and musically nothing at all like his day job band. It is in fact a commendably focused Southern Rock album featuring guest singers such as Cody Jinks and Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr.
A lot of it, including the latter, is likely to wash straight over the heads of those who’ve come for the man’s heavier side, but music like the title-track and ‘Hell & Back’ (a collaboration with The Cadillac Three’s Jaren Johnston) expertly capture Mark’s urge to kiss goodbye to his troubles, honoring them perhaps with a one-fingered salute.
Better still, and by far the heaviest track here, is ‘Nocturnal Sun’ which stars Mastodon’s Troy Sanders amid some monster truck riffage. Clutch’s Neil Fallon turns up for a spot-on update of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1974 classic ‘The Needle And The Spoon’, and kudos too for teenage guitar prodigy Grace Bowers who delivers an intricately ear-catching solo on ‘Dust’.
It’s inevitable that little here is going to chime with the rest of Mark’s recorded works, but for him, that’s also the entire point – this is not just a useful diversion but a clear reminder of the man’s musical aptitude.
01 – Hell & Back (feat. Jaren Johnston)
02 – Brother (feat. Cody Jinks)
03 – Without the Pain (feat. Matt James)
04 – Kite String (feat. Travis Denning)
05 – Come December (feat. Charlie Starr & Jason Isbell)
06 – Dust (feat. Cody Jinks & Grace Bowers)
07 – Forever In The Light
08 – Nocturnal Sun (feat. Troy Sanders & Jared James Nichols)
09 – The Needle And The Spoon (feat. Neil Fallon)
10 – Home (feat. Travis Denning)
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