So Take This Night: Revisiting Black Lab's "Passion Leaves a Trace"

Black Lab

It started out with a cowboy, straddling a bull, waiting for the gate to open, and, when it did, the bull burst out onto the rodeo grounds, in slow motion, with the cowboy struggling to hang on.  It was set to this music.

The song had a slow, trip hop beat with a faint Indian sitar, and the lyrics were a hoarse whisper:

"So take this night

Wrap it around me like a sheet

I know I'm not forgiven

But I need a place to sleep

So take this night

Lay me down on the street

I know I'm not forgiven

But I hope that I'll be given

Some peace"

The vocal harmonies on the chorus were so haunting that I had to know what the song was.

The TV show was "House M.D.", and I was binge watching several seasons.  The scene I describe above was the opening sequence of one of the episodes.  I heard this haunting song and liked it right away.  I Googled it, and the song was "This Night" by Black Lab.

Now, I had never heard of Black Lab before, but apparent they have put out five albums since the late '90s.  In fact, they have a fairly recent release, but the song I was looking for was off of the 2007 album, "Passion Leaves a Trace" (which has one of the sexiest album covers ever).

I downloaded the whole album, but I was kind of disappointed.  Not all of the album was haunting and ethereal trip hop like "This Night".  No, they are radio-friendly, post-grunge rock, kind of like Switchfoot or Daughtry.  No, not Nickelback, because Black Lab is actually good.  They are the kind of rock that was pretty popular in the last decade.  Which is not my style of music at all.

One thing I like about this band is that all of their albums since 2005 have been self-released since Geffen dropped them, and they have relied on their fans, podcasts, and bloggers to carry them forward.  In fact, one of the songs on this album, a sweet ballad called "Mine Again" hit the charts due to a campaign called Bum Rush the Charts.

Even if not all of the songs are "This Night", there are some really excellent songs on here.  "Ghost In Your Mind" is a shimmering piece with a really catchy vocal hook.  "Gone" has some strobe effects on the guitar along with a steady, pulsing bass line that turns out quite pleasant.  "Weightless" is another slow tempo gem that veers into trip hop territory again.  "Broken Heart" turns it up to 11 in a simmering jam.  "Sun and Moon" is one of my favorite tracks with its electronic beat and jabbing guitars, offset by the falsetto chorus.  "The Window" finishes out the album with a hushed, smoky dream pop piece.

I'm not going to say that this album is bad.  Neither am I going to say that I should have just downloaded "This Night" instead of the whole album.  It's not a bad album.  But "This Night" is the only song thus far that has made it onto my CD mixes.