It was 25-years ago in June that arguably the best Screaming Trees album was offered to the world. The 1996 album Dust followed 1992’s Sweet Oblivion, the duo of which could have elevated the band to a higher profile had the members been able to get along and tour in support of the first album. Regardless, let’s look at this quality product offered by guitarist Gary Lee Conner, bassist and guitarist Van Conner, lead vocalist and guitarist Mark Lanegan and drummer / percussionist Barrett Martin.
Halo of Ashes opens the album Dust with the opening declaration for the ground that will be traveled emotionally. The reference seems to evoke death and a biblical calling to facing the valley of death with nothing to fear. The foreshadowing of death is a remembering of what the soul and the spirit mean. That the album starts with this warning, and a long-term distance from them, captures my attention with each playing of this song.
All I Know alludes clearly to the passion story of Jesus Christ, with the temptation that precedes it. The halo of ashes give way to an earthly crown of thorns calling the spirit back to earth to suffer a fate while passing on the wants of physical humanity.
The instrumentation beginning Look at You stands out among the range of songs on Dust. In lyrically calling to the spirits of remembered losses and the pain that joins an uplifting, hopeful melting into something meaningful that helps peace of mind. The calling and the sound make this song work so well, in my humble opinion.
Dying Days includes Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready. While the song looks into feelings related to growing up to find the people and attitudes of a once familiar place and people no longer bringing comfort, the lonely in the song deals with not knowing where to turn when the divine doesn’t bring the needed help. It has been suggested this song contemplates the deaths of Nirvana‘s Kurt Cobain or the popularity of Grunge as a musical style.
Make My Mind brings an end to the first side of Dust with a request in love to allow the singer to catch up with where his love emotionally is, in advance of the feelings between the couple. The feeling of love is in the singer’s heart, but where is his love. Is the song lifting a request to meet him where he is in love?
Sworn and Broken opens the second side of the album Dust. The song was released in single as well, and evokes the sense of new beginnings after an old ending that comes with a resolution to change. A sadness overrides the feeling of the song with ending in breaking, dying. Do you sense an opportunity to assess, change and try again? Simply the hurt of a failure that could rest in the divine purpose?
In perhaps the closest thing to a distinctive Screaming Trees sound, Witness lyrically seeks a spiritual awakening through confession, both received and given in a mirroring effect with the listener of the song. The clear declarations of feeling seek to be heard and hearing. Do you hear the personal heartache in this song?
Traveler hits you with a brooding, moody appeal to move from the darkness in one’s soul to a place of light. The acoustical choice for this song contributes to a mood that stands up with the other instrumentation to offer something melodic and growing that evokes the feeling of travel, whether that be physically or spiritually as has been discussed through the album or the specific lyrics of this song.
Dime Western hits you with a rhythm and blues lick that lyrically and through sound asks for a mood uplift in the face of a desperate experience with but one path to the metaphorical promised land. The song itself is well played in evoking desperate feelings, ending this foray into the corporeal with a higher feeling.
The traditional African American Spiritual Gospel Plow. The full-blown power and emotional pull of this song caps with another direct evocation of Jesus Christ brings forth such force that statement that I cannot help but smile.
Matt – Saturday, August 21, 2021
Matt Lynn Digital 