Smoker's Lung

One of the best concepts I heard outlined in 2007 was a musical project called The Gutter Twins which teamed up former Afghan Whigs frontman/current Twilight Singers frontman Greg Dulli with former Screaming Trees frontman/Queens of the Stone Age and Isobel Campbell collaborator/solo artist Mark Lanegan. If there were two guys destined to work with one another, I'd say it was those two. It's like a dark, disturbed, smokey, and infinitely cool teaming of legends. Superman and Batman getting together, if you will, but instead it's two guys with all kinds of personal demons.

Yes, Mark Lanegan has contributed a few things to past Twilight Singers albums, and those songs generally turned out well, but to get a whole album of the two together is magical in its own way. So "Saturnalia" is the album out today, and it's exactly what fans of one or both artists might expect- murky, dark, disturbing, guitar-heavy and altogether brilliant. If you happen to like that stuff, I can't recommend this release more. Some people prefer their music sunny side up all the time, and that isn't what this is. Instead picture it as the soundtrack to your own personal film noir.

Detectives find a beautiful young woman brutally murdered in a sludge-filled alley at 2am. It's been raining out and the alley is located right behind a XXX theatre on the seedy side of town. There aren't any lights in the alley so everybody has to use flashlights. A pair of dumpsters line one side of the alley, with the dead body on the other. There are broken syringes on the ground because junkies typically use the area to shoot up. A homeless man sits in the dark amid his pile of trash bags that contain all his posessions in the world. He claims he didn't see anything, but by the fresh bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand you know somebody paid him to keep quiet. The entire scene is grisly. You feel like you could catch a disease just walking around in the general area. You're not scared because you've got a team of police with you, but the entire situation is one of the most dismal yet intriguing things you've ever encountered. It's inspiring and motivational because after seeing all that the one thing you want more than anything else in the world is to catch the son-of-a-bitch who did this to a poor, defenseless woman.

That paragraph describes exactly what it's like to listen to "Saturnalia." It's the start to what could be a really, really good film if you're into that sort of thing. If it's not your cup of tea, chances are this album isn't either. Or, maybe even better, the tone is akin to a film like "Sin City." Hopefully that makes more sense. And like that movie this album is great. I've got to be in a certain mood to listen to it, but it perfectly satisfies me when I get to that point. I hope it does the same for you.

The Gutter Twins- All Misery/Flowers
The Gutter Twins- Idle Hands

Stream the entire album at their Myspace page

Buy "Saturnalia" from Amazon

Labels: afghan whigs, greg dulli, mark lanegan, screaming trees, the gutter twins, twilight singers