Dust

Screaming Trees

album cover

A Heavy-Rock Meditation on Life and (Mostly) Death

The final song on this, the most underappreciated classic of the Seattle rock revolution, is called "Gospel Plow." It appropriates parts of a gospel standard favored by Pete Seeger and other folkies, and begins in the ageless cadence of an old-time spiritual. By the time the guitars kick in, vocalist Mark Lanegan has established himself as just another humble seeker who's a little bit scared of death. As the song unfolds, this character's spirit-quest takes him out in the big world, where keeping on the right side of cosmic accounts is a constant challenge, and the Grim Reaper is always trailing by a few steps. (The band members were familiar with this struggle: Before recording this swan song, they'd broken up several times because of substance abuse troubles.)

"Gospel Plow" hits all of the gruff-voiced Lanegan's sweet spots—it's got echoes of frontier Americana, a touch of bliss-seeking psychedelia, and lyrics sung off-handedly in a manner that's hopeful yet dour. It also turns on a trembling, undeniable refrain, buried though it may be under planks of industrial-strength guitar. Where Nirvana put the candy right out on the table, Lanegan and his cohorts dared listeners to dig. You have to get past the corrosive roar, past the foreboding lumberjack bluntness of Lanegan's vocals, past the ornate guitar countermelodies that crawl in the background. When you do, you'll discover that these are just plain great songs. Every last one of them.

Genre: Rock
Released: 1996, Epic
Key Tracks: "Gospel Plow," "Dying Days"
Catalog Choice: Sweet Oblivion; Mark Lanegan solo: Whiskey for the Holy Ghost
Next Stop: Alice in Chains: Dirt
Book Page: 685

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#1 from Eps, Victoria, BC - 12/08/2010 4:20

I personally love this album to death and think it’s their greatest, but I usually see Sweet Oblivion on recommended listening lists over this. Just curious, why did you pick this over Sweet Oblivion?

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About 1,000 Recordings

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