Saturnalia review from
www.mic.gr (Translated)
I don't think there's anyone out there listening to good rock music who hasn't stumbled on at least bits of Mr. Lanegan's and Mr. Dulli's work over the course of the last 20 years. The former, having cut his teeth in the fuzzy,psychedelic,almost-famous grunge heroes Screaming Trees,went on to release a series of beautifully haunted personal albums which, despite their critical acclaim failed to break to the mainstream.
The public came to know him as a part-time collaborator of the Queens of the Stone Age and more recently Isobel Campbell (ex Belle and Sebastian) and the british electro gospel duo, Soulsavers. Dulli, frontman for the manic soul rock hedonists, Afghan Whigs and recently, the noir rock collective of the Twilight Singers, needs no introductions. As a colleague very eloquently put it, if Lanegan sings like he's rising from the dead, Dulli sounds like he's falling from grace.
Chums since the 90's, they've been regularly popping up on each other's recordings with remarkable results (Their cover of Massive Attack's Live With Me is already considered a classic) but we had to welcome 2008 for them to release a full length, split credit LP. "Saturnalia" is the sound of despair shutting the door and buying everyone whiskey. The heels of your life's great love on the sidewalk as she leaves you. Hail on your last crop.
We're not talking emo bullshit here nor geeky metallers playing mean over layers of canned noise. In the world of the Gutter Twins, the glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It's just fucking dirty. Having both faced nearly fatal drug addictions, prison and a series of relationships so dysfunctional that would have most of everyone else running for the psychiatric ward they are the rock n' roll survivor archetypes.
The album is posessed of a quality only found in some savage, pre-war country blues recordings. The pain is only as real as the courage with which you get up to face it. Your dim hopes for salvation can be counted in bullets and miles. Opener "The Stations" sets off the album's tone. A blues prayer turning into a scream, deftly twists into "God's Children", a misleading downtempo lullaby that explodes into All Misery/Flowers.
Dulli has stated that this track is his favorite on the album and one has no difficulty telling why. More confessional than anything either Twin has done in the past, violent and desperate this sounds like Dylan discovering death metal on his deathbed.
And though the album peaks with "Idle Hands", a dynamite marriage of AC/DC and the Twilight Singers in it's sick, orgiastic chorus it's the quieter, almost folky "Who Will Lead Us?" and "Seven Stories Underground" that truly make you marvel at the Gutter Twins' talent. Lanegan sings with incredible sensitivity and wonders if there's a way out, if at some point the thorns end and the path begins. The answer is close by, in the shape of "Front Street" a little masterpiece that could serve as an epitaph for either Twin. This is quite possibly the strongest track either has penned in their entire career and the sheer emotion,power and devastating honesty in Dulli's voice when he sings "Life is shame and your hands are stained,walk in chains and change your name..." are without equal and beyond any and all comparison.
You are going to see Saturnalia up there with the year's best. It's flame in deepest darkness. It's your smiling "Fuck You"whilst speeding on to certain death. It's lion hearted rock n' roll in a dark suit. Ignore at your own peril.
9/10
Wow, that's an incredibly insightful review. Doesn't get better. Thanks.