Mark Lanegan: Whiskey for the Holy Ghost [SUB POP]

Why you'll love it

This Sub Pop LP comes in an embossed jacket with a poster of the album art. It's the record where the Screaming Trees singer's dark, roots-deep solo voice came fully into focus.

This edition

• Poster included
• Embossed jacket
• Printed insert

About the album

Lanegan meant this to be a quick record. It took about four years. Between Screaming Trees albums and tours he chipped away at it a week here and a month there, working through a long list of studios, engineers and players, rewriting and re-recording until it sounded the way he heard it. It was mixed at Messina Music in New York and mastered at Gateway Mastering in Maine. It followed his 1990 debut The Winding Sheet and built on its roots-music foundation.

The patience shows. Co-producer Mike Johnson helps frame Lanegan's baritone in acoustic guitars, brushed drums and dusty space, and Mudhoney's Dan Peters drums on "Borracho" and "House a Home," the single. Lanegan said Van Morrison and Cormac McCarthy fired his imagination, with Morrison feeding straight into "Carnival," while "Pendulum" began as a joke to make Johnson laugh. "The River Rise" later scored the vigil scenes in the grunge documentary Hype!

AllMusic's Mark Deming found the songs more literate and better realized than on the debut. Four years is a long time to spend on one album; the good news is it plays in a single sitting.

Also at Kops: more Mark Lanegan on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Sub Pop (cat# SP-132), the 1994 album.