Screaming Trees - Last Words: The Final Recordings

Screaming Trees - Last Words: The Final Recordings
Genre: Rock/Grunge
Rating: 10/10

Way back in the mid eighties alternative music began to shift away from it's traditional values with a unprecedented explosion of hair-rock and cheesey metal swamping the charts people began to tire of the classic rock template. It was this tiresome over the top posturing that aided a musical revolution and saw the birth of alternative rock and grunge both genres which focus more on expression than leather clad cliches. One of these groundbreaking bands was Washington's psychedelic rockers Screaming Trees who to this day are seen as one of the founding fathers of the grunge movement. Whilst the bands legacy and influence on the grunge scene is undeniable the bands sound was a much more traditional affair heavily influenced by the psychedelic tinged rock of the 60's. Unfortunately Grunge would end up being the reason behind the bands break up in 2000, with the influx of grunge bands record labels had a hard time working out how to market the more vintage rock made by Screaming Trees and with frontman Mark Lanegans solo career gathering speed the band dissolved.

Whilst 2011 has been a monumental year of unexpected comebacks the liner notes of Last Words clearly state that this is not a reunion album. The majority of the music on display instead was recorded way back in 1999 for the follow up to bands seminal work Dust and was distributed to labels in an attempt to secure a record deal. Whilst in 1999 the record label was king of the music industry the slow disintegration of this idea over the past few years has given Screaming Trees an opportunity to actually independently release this material to the fans. The album is produced by an equally important character in the grunge movement, Jack Endino. Endino himself was part of Skin Yard another band that helped to form the Seattle sound and is still to this day an influential music producer most notable for his production of Nirvana's debut Bleach. The album is true to form sticking to the sound the Screaming Tree's had perfected by the late nineties, fusing poppy choruses with the flair and imagination of classic psychedelic rock. Throughout the album Lanegan's legendary dry whiskey stained vocals provide an almost blues feel whilst soaring sustained solo's by Gary Lee Conner paint a beautiful range of tones and moods. Whilst sceptics could easily regard posthumous releases as a quick cash in, Last Words from start to finish is an impressive addition to the bands already established canon of work. Highlights come thick and fast from the punchy fast paced opener "Ash Gray Sunday" all the way to the sombre closing moments of "Last Words". Other highlights include the fiery "Black Rose Way" and the more experimental and claustrophobic "Crawlspace". From start to finish Last Words delivers what may just be the Screaming Trees strongest recorded work. The only downside to the brilliance of this album is the fact that it is merely an epitaph in a career that has already reached its conclusion. The album highlights what a crying shame it was that the band had to break up and how foolish record companies can lead to great works being overlooked.

Overall Last Words is an amazing album showcasing the Screaming Trees at the peak of their career. Whilst the band members have all moved on to massively successful projects since the bands break up there is still a real feel of nostalgia to their music. Their influential mix of psychedlic rock and grunge was perhaps before its time and the sound still resonates with power hard to rival. Highly recommended.

Download: "Black Rose Way" "Ash Gray Sunday"