Track Listing

1. Shadow Of The Season
2. Nearly Lost You
3. Dollar Bill
4. More Or Less
5. Butterfly
6. Secret Kind
7. Winter Song
8. Troubled Times
9. No One Knows
10. Julie Paradise

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8777 in Music
• Released on: 1991-01-01
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import

CD Description
The commercial breakthrough for this Seattle foursome came with their song "Nearly Lost You" from the soundtrack to the1992 Cameron Crowe film SINGLES. That song, included here, is a powerful slice of dramatic rock that's only vaguely related to the grunge scene into which the Screaming Trees wereunfairly lumped.
While the group's major-label debut, 1991's UNCLE ANESTHESIA, had its metallic elements, the band mostly favoured a '70s-style brand of neo-psychedelia more indebted to TOMMY-era Who and other FM radio stalwarts than topunkier grunge forebears. Mark Lanegan's classic-rock voiceand Gary Connor's thunderous guitar give this album a much more commercially viable sound than the group's earlier albums. SWEET OBLIVION is a minor classic of grunge-era commercial alternative music.

Customer Reviews

The first truly great Screaming Trees album.
This is where Screaming Trees made their first perfect album- the previous year's 'Uncle Anethesia' had been fine song-wise: the production & mixing gave it a flat sound. Here producer Don Fleming (Dinosaur Jr, Hole, Posies,Teenage Fanclub) & mixer Andy Wallace ('Nevermind', 'Grace')give the perfect sound to the tuneful sonic barrage that was the Trees.

Screaming Trees were overlooked in the whole grunge (non)phenemenon- see Naomi Klein's comments on its apolitical pseudo-revolution in 'No Logo'. Starting off as a band closer to Butthole Surfers & Black Sabbath, they did not develop as songwriters until the early 90's. This shift was precipitated by singer Mark Lanegan's foray into solo work- producing the brilliant 'The Winding Sheet' with Mike Johnson. The songs on 'UA' were of a much better quality than before: Lay Your Head Down standing out. The lineup changed with Mike Pickeral being ousted by multi-instrumentalist & brilliant drummer, Barrett Martin (who has also played on 'Rated R', 'Up' and Lanegan's solo albums). So, everything came together on this brilliant album- almost as great as the stratospheric 'Dust' (the Trees final release).

'Shadow of the Season' is an epic opener- moving into guitar overload with ease-imagine a concise Led Zep...'Nearly Lost You' & 'Dollar Bill' were the singles. The former was featured in 'Singles' & has a Cream/Hendrix flavour to its wonderful radiosong construction. The latter is an acoustic based ballad they would perfect with 'Sworn & Broken'; imagine a grunge 'Wonderwall'!...'More or Less' is a midpaced track that has hooks aplenty- Lanegan's lyrics fusing with the Connor-Bros. riffs...'Butterfly' is a precursor of 'Dust's brilliant 'Make My Mind'; this is close to the Trees live sound. The background keyboards & piano would feature heavily on the next album...'For Celebrations Past' is a bonus track on the CD- but is as good quality as the rest of the album. It is a light rocker that gets more epic on the chorus; as with the 'Dust'-b-sides 'Wasted Time' & 'Silver Tongue' you wonder why they became out-takes...'The Secret Kind' is a more conventional thrash- think The Who 'Live at Leeds' meets 'Witness' or 'Something About Today'...'Winter Song' opens with a blues riff that Soundgarden would have wet-dreamt for; it is a slightly more conventional rock song- though as great as anything by Queens of the Stone Age- or off Pearl Jam's 'Vs.'...'Troubled Times' moves even more to the blues- the territory Lanegan's solo work is aligned to- the song eventually mutates into a band number as 'Gospel Plow'. This is classic Screaming Trees: hooks galore & epic rock...'No One Knows' is a resigned ballad where Gary Lee Connor's chiming guitar fuses with Lanegan's downbeat experiences...Finally 'Julie Paradise' ends the first great Screaming Trees album. It reminds me of Masters of Reality live- the song just begins as a kind of jam before the catchy hook establishs itself: "In the water/something's going wrong"- the powerful riffs come in & the band take the album home. This is as great way as a great album can end; will people finally discover the joys of Screaming Trees?

smileysmiley
This album is absolutely undeniably brilliant. I can't really fault it, Lanegans folksy and yet thundering vocals just keep you there. Buy it, it be darn good and better!

never heard a album so beautiful and heavy
Mark Lanegan, featured on queens of the stoneage decent album songs for the deaf and i think he's on there new one, but he's best as a solo performer, or when he was with the forgotten band called screaming tree that never got enough mainstream attetion as say the likes of nirvana, pearl jam and soundgarden,
these guys wrote crunchy pop rock songs mark lanegan had a way of making the listener feel happy when he was pouring out his heart with blissful dark lyrics,

everyone that was around in 92 will know the single nearly lost you? pure beauty that you NEED TO LISTEN TOO,
there quite alot of standout tracks
shadow of the season, nearly lost you, dollar bill, more or less
butterfly,
go on treat youself to a fantastic "grunge" album that will never get the mainstream attention it's deserves,