Without The Pain Mark Morton

• 1 Hell & Back (feat. Jaren Johnston) 03:06
• 2 Brother (feat. Cody Jinks) 03:20
• 3 Without the Pain (feat. Matt James) 02:56
• 4 Kite String (feat. Travis Denning) 02:57
• 5 Come December (feat. Charlie Starr & Jason Isbell) 05:02
• 6 Down No More (feat. Nikki Lane) 03:27
• 7 Dust (feat. Cody Jinks & Grace Bowers) 03:36
• 8 Forever In The Light (feat. Tyler Bryant) 04:34
• 9 Nocturnal Sun (feat. Troy Sanders & Jared James Nichols) 03:21
• 10 The Needle And The Spoon (feat. Neil Fallon) 03:50
• 11 Home (feat. Travis Denning) 04:17
• Total Runtime 40:26

Info for Without The Pain

Twenty-five years into a music career that has seen five Grammy nominations, two RIAA certified Gold records and, most recently, the publication of Desolation: A Heavy Metal Memoir, an honest reflection on his life in music and beyond, Mark Morton’s creative energy is at an all-time high.

Over the course of two decades spent building a worldwide audience as guitarist and songwriter for Lamb of God, Morton’s musical ambitions were steadily evolving.

While enjoying Lamb of God’s success in the heavy metal world, there were still elements of his songwriting that weren’t finding their way to the surface – the result being, first, 2019’s ‘Anesthetic’, an album featuring a host of high-profile artists, including late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington, and now ‘Without The Pain’, his second solo outing and a paean to his longstanding love of southern rock...

As a young child in the ’70s and ’80s, southern rock music was a mainstay of Morton’s small town Virginia upbringing. The sounds of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers Band, Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot and more helped to shape the fledgling musician’s understanding of what would eventually become his lifelong passion for rock guitar.

Without The Pain wasn’t a project Morton took on alone. Produced by longtime collaborator Josh Wilbur, the album features a world class list of contributors, including some of Americana, rock and country’s biggest names...

Outlaw country star Cody Jinks delivers two powerful songs, including the haunting “Brother”; Blackberry Smoke frontman Charlie Starr teams up with Americana superstar Jason Isbell on “Come December”, while Jaren Johnston (The Cadillac Three) delivers an attitude packed performance on opening track, “Hell & Back”.

Meanwhile, country hitmaker Travis Denning – a Georgia-born artist with a previous No. 1 on the US country airplay chart – collaborates on two moving numbers, both featuring subtle and delicate guitar textures that showcase a different dimension of Morton’s songwriting.

Troy Sanders (Mastodon) steps up to sing ‘Nocturnal Sun’, a thunderous doom dirge and the heaviest track on the album, while blues guitar phenomenon Tyler Bryant teams up with Morton for a fireworks-filled guitar duel on throwback psychedelic blues romp, ‘Forever In The Light’.

The album also features a choice Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, ‘The Needle And The Spoon’, purposefully delivered by Neil Fallon (Clutch) and released first, making it clear just where the heart of the project lies. Finally, rounding things off, there’s a storming anthemic rocker fronted by Matt James of Blacktop Mojo, also the album’s title track, and James will be fronting the live band when it takes to the road in 2025.

Other featured players include guitar greats Grace Bowers and Jared James Nichols, while joining Morton to make up ‘Without The Pain’s core studio band are bassist Tim Lefebrve (David Bowie, Tedeschi Trucks Band), drummer Gary Novak (Allan Holdsworth, Alanis Morrissette) and keyboardist Adam MacDougall (The Black Crowes, Macy Gray).

Mark Morton

Mark Morton
For all its depth, diversity and cross-pollinated ambition, modern metal needs its figureheads, its heroes and its leaders. Lamb of God have been blazing mercilessly away at the forefront of heavy music for the last 15 years, upholding metal’s intrinsic values of honesty, intensity and creativity while also daring to push boundaries and think outside the heavy box. Exploding into view with 2000’s seminal debut New American Gospel, the Virginian quintet inadvertently kick-started the so-called New Wave Of American Metal at the dawn of the 21st century; and have notched up a succession of huge commercial hit albums and remorselessly toured the globe ever since. The combination of vocalist Randy Blythe’s excoriating growls and roars, guitarists Willie Adler and Mark Morton’s precision attack and the bowel-shattering rumble of rhythm section John Campbell (bass) and Chris Adler (drums) has both refined and redefined the notion of aggressive metal in the modern era.

This album contains no booklet.