Album review: Mark Morton – Without The Pain

It turns out that a change is as good as a rest. For Mark Morton, the 52-year-old guitarist in eternal metal champs 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 LOG. His one previous solo album, 2019’s Anesthetic, was a varied hard rock effort, notable for featuring a vocal (on Cross Off) from Chester Bennington who had died some 18 months prior to its release.

Without The Pain is much more concentrated; not much like its predecessor and nothing at all like Mark's day job. It is in fact a commendably focused country 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, honouring 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 Dust’s intricately ear-catching solo.

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.

Verdict: 3/5

For fans of: Rival Sons, Queens Of The Stone Age, The Cadillac Three

Without The Pain is released on April 11 via Snakefarm