Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 05/24/2005
Of all the Seattle-based
alternative rock bands of the late '80s and early '90s,
Screaming Trees arguably were the best at capturing the dank, heavy gloom of their hometown -- the mix of
punk and '70s
hard rock that became known as
grunge -- but they had the least amount of success of any of their peers.
Nirvana changed the world,
Pearl Jam conquered stadiums across America,
Soundgarden and
Alice in Chains reshaped
heavy metal, while
Mudhoney carved out a cult for their knowingly sleazy update on '60s
garage punk and
the Stooges.
Screaming Trees had a cult, not just among fans but musicians --
Kurt Cobain was particularly taken with the band's vocalist,
Mark Lanegan, whose American gothic spin on
folk can be clearly heard as an influence on
Nirvana's spookier work -- but they never managed to break to a larger audience, even when they had a radio and
MTV hit in 1992 with the surging
"Nearly Lost You," pulled from the
Singles soundtrack. Part of the problem was that
Screaming Trees not only didn't look like
rock stars -- as the cliché goes, brothers
Gary Lee and
Van Conner looked like lumberjacks, while
Lanegan struck an intimidating presence -- but they looked large, hairy, and
scary and made thick psychedelic music that matched. Those trippy, minor-key undercurrents and
Lanegan's worn, ragged croon lent the group's music an uneasiness, and while the band's musical touchstones weren't all that far removed from
Nirvana or
Soundgarden, the predilection for
psychedelia and
Lanegan's haunted tales guaranteed that
Screaming Trees would be on the outside looking in, even if their records captured the roiling spirit of their times as much as their Seattle brethren. In fact, they were one of the best examples of the Catch-22 that faced most '90s
alt-rock bands: since their music was built partially on classic
rock it seemed accessible on the surface, but the attitude and spirit that fueled their work kept them aligned to the fringes of
rock, so they never fully belonged to either the mainstream or underground camp. They forever were straddling between the two worlds, which may have hurt them commercially, but it made for some excellent music, as
Epic/
Legacy's 2005 compilation
Ocean of Confusion: Songs of Screaming Trees proves.
This 19-song collection covers the group's '90s recordings for
Epic, which consisted of three albums -- 1991's
Uncle Anesthesia, 1992's
Sweet Oblivion, 1996's
Dust -- plus some stray B-sides and an EP. The band's recordings for
SST have been previously compiled on the 1991 release
Anthology: SST Years 1985-1989, and they're not missed here, because their
Epic albums were more unified, forceful, and realized than their indie work. Starting with
Uncle Anesthesia,
Screaming Trees began to gel, as the band's sound gained a muscular inevitability while
Lanegan's writing achieved a grand, darkly romantic, doomed quality.
Sweet Oblivion was an appealingly bombastic record, while
Dust had a cinematic splendor, closing their career out on a fittingly melancholy coda. Each of the three albums worked well individually -- with the latter two vying for the title of the group's best record -- but when distilled to their highlights on
Ocean of Confusion, they give the band a compelling narrative that makes this an excellent summary of the band's career. Even the rarities --
"Who Lies in Darkness," from the 1990 EP
Something About Today, the B-side
"ESK," two
Don Fleming-produced tracks from 1994,
"Watchpocket Blues" (which cleverly alludes to
Led Zeppelin's
"Celebration Day") and
"Paperback Bible" -- keep the album moving, filling in gaps in the band's history and helping to trace their evolution. While
Sweet Oblivion and
Dust remain fine records in their own right, this compilation is so well executed that it may be their most satisfying overall album. And that means that it's so good that it's easy to forgive the absence of 1991's
"Bed of Roses" and 1996's
"All I Know," two of the band's four charting
Billboard Modern Rock singles -- casual fans may wish these radio hits were here, but the collection is strong enough to thrive without them.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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