The following are reviews for the single 'Stay'
(with 'Death Don't Have No Mercy', and 'Slide Machine')


As written in Kerrang! Issue 719 (Oct. 98) Review by Paul Elliott

MARK LANEGAN

Stay

(Sub Pop)

KKKKK (Essential)


The Screaming Trees have made some of the most melancholic music of the post-grunge era, but singer Mark Lanegan turns the misery up a few notches further on his third solo album, 'Scraps at Midnight', from which 'Stay' is extracted. Lanegan's voice is as beguiling as it is baleful, making this an unlikely single, but a great one nonetheless. The lead track is typical of the current album - acoustic based, slow, sombre - but the two additional tracks are even better. 'Death Don't Have No Mercy' is a traditional American folk song full of heavy vibes, while the frazzled 'Slide Machine' is a weird one borrowed from Texan drug fiends the 13th Floor Elevators. Sounding like a bourbon-filled Tom Waits writing for a David Lynch western, Mark Lanegan might just be the most gifted rock songwriter since Kurt Cobain.

From Hot Press:

MARK LANEGAN : 'Stay' (Beggar's Banquet)

Written with longtime collaborator and former Dinosaur Jr. bassist Mike Johnson (no bad songwriter himself), this is pretty much what you'd expect from Lanegan, the lapsed alcoholic poet laureate of Shitsville, USA. Swinging indolently from a lovingly knotted acoustic noose, 'Stay' is a mordant but ultimately uplifting ballad. The extra tracks are even better - the ex-Screaming Trees frontman's husky boot-hill baritone renders the traditional 'Death Don't Have No Mercy' with the authority of any octogenarian journeyman, while the version of Powell St.John's 'Slide Machine' is the musical missing link between Slingblade and Dead Man Walking.


from Dublin Event Guide *(is this a good review or a bad one?? I can't tell!)*


Single of the Fortnight

Mark Lanegan

Stay (Beggars Banquet)

No sooner had I finalised the plans for a shrine to his 'Scraps At Midnight' album then along comes ol' troubled tonsils and ruins everything with this single. 'Stay' sees Lanegan travelling down his favourite back alley of late night laments with his conscience for company. 'Livin' ain't hard...it just ain't easy,' he rasps in that 240 a day voice and you'll be too impressed to disagree. When you've recovered from that soul-stripping, check out his take on the traditional 'Death Don't Have No Mercy', which is the scariest thing you'll hear this year.

Harry Guerin


From http://come.to/robots/

Mark Lanegan, Stay (Beggars Banquet) CDS

Dusty plains, deserted but for a tarmac lifeline and a single wooden gas station with two pumps, a Coke machine and an ice-box. That's where we find Mark Lanegan stirring up a Country Americana solemnity to lay his Tom Waits/Lou Reed songs atop. Backed with a folk song "Death Don't Have No Mercy" which magnifies his magnificent lungs and "Slide Machine" by the 13th Floor Elevators which melts some welcome psyche-blues into the sound.