Track Listing

1. River Isle
2. Borracho
3. House A Home
4. Kingdoms Of Rain
5. Carnival
6. Riding The Nightingale
7. El Sol
8. Dead On You
9. Shooting Gallery
10. Sunrise
11. Pendulum
12. Judas Touch
13. Beggar's Blues

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38817 in Music
• Released on: 2004-08-30
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
For his second solo album, Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, Mark Lanegan, the former singer for the Screaming Trees, decided to go wider and deeper. The arrangements are mostly acoustic and electric guitars, bass and drums, but the subtle addition of violin and saxophone on select cuts makes for greater variance and gives the album a rich, epic scope. As always, Lanegan sees the glass as neither half-empty or half-full, just dirty. "Borracho" reaches a cathartic wall of shrieking feedback, but mostly Lanegan tunes down for the ambulatory emissions and Seattle blues of "Shooting Gallery", "Judas Touch" and "Kingdoms of Rain". --Rob O'Connor

Customer Reviews

Anyone who rates this less than 5 stars is WRONG: it's science
This is not just Mark Lanegan's finest solo album, it's his most beautifully evocative work to date.
As has been previously mentioned, there will always be a certain popular feeling summoned up by listening to Lanegan's whiskey-weary, "just-give-me-somewhere-to-sit-down-and-smoke" vocals, which could lend itself to an artist resting on his or her laurels and allowing themselves to become a one-trick-pony who's bound to sell, as is the case with such acts as Motorhead (these days).
As it stands, Mark's songcraft has developed leaps and bounds since his instrumentally-sparse debut "The Winding Sheet", while retaining its lyrical intensity. It is in essence the next logical step: there are some actual just heart-achingly beautiful arrangements displayed in songs such as 'Kingdoms of Rain': a funeral procession of a song, where the vocals are harmonised by an organ to incredible effect. 'Borracho' - literally, "drunk" in Spanish, builds up a storm of swirling, angular rhythm guitar until you DO feel drunk, and the desert really does turn to ocean over you, you can FEEL it. 'Carnival' is possibly my favourite song of all time, and not far behind is 'Sunrise': it will move you intensely to listen to this song when no one is up yet, you've poured a glass of wine for yourself and the most important thing in the world is how the light shining in from behind the blinds is falling across your face, and when the saxophone filters in, a moment of complete musical perfection is achieved.

Also, it is completely recommended that you purchase this if you've heard the Soulsaver's cover of 'Kingdoms of Rain' with Mark Lanegan on vocals. That, and this, is soul music at its best.

Pretty good, but he's done better
Mark Lanegan's gorgeous cracked purr of a voice against a suitably moody backing will ALWAYS stir the soul, but this perfectly acceptable album lacks the songcraft to really land a suckerpunch.

Though effective in conjuring up reflective weariness and woe the songs rather blend into on another and fail to stick in the mind. The acoustic/electric guitar melange is solidly textured and atmospheric, but hooks and contrast are in short supply.

It's a pity too that the vulnerability and romantic tenderness of Mark's later albums are also MIA.

The last four tracks are the best things here, leaner and more ambitious and good by any standard. They're a foretaste of the corking "I'll Take Care of You" and "Field Songs" albums.

superb
just superb, you can almost smell the cigerette smoke with this step back into the early days of subpop. this is a surprisingly sensitive album from a label who spawned the likes of tad, nirvana, mudhoney, pond etc. but it sits well with its contemporaries.
like a slower, more contemplatative screaming trees.
excellent