Audio CD review:
Screaming Trees - Clairvoyance

Screaming Trees - Clairvoyance

Band: Screaming Trees Title: Clairvoyance Rating: Release Date: 2005-01-25 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Orange Airplane 2: You Tell Me All These Things 3: Standing on the Edge 4: Forever 5: Seeing and Believing 6: I See Stars 7: Lonely Girl 8: Strange Out Here 9: The Turning - Screaming Trees, Screaming Trees 10: Clairvoyance

A Doorsy first outing! If you are a Trees fan get this album NOW! You can hear the most obvious infuence on their debut. There is only one other person who reviewed this album. Doorsy guitar playing rages all over and splashes of keyboards crash through a few tracks. It is nearly perfect the whole way through. Here's the tracks in respect to their rating. 1. Orange Airplane - Nice opening! raw psychedelic punk rocker. 7/10 2. You Tell Me All These Things - Ultracatchy doorsy rocker with fast paced keyboards. This songs won't stick right away. After a few listens you're hooked! 8/10 3. Standing on the Edge - A bluesy rocker with Mark Lanegan's soulful vocals. The Drumming by Mark Pickerel is awesome here proving that he was not slouch before Barrett Martin. Probably the best track! 10/10 4. Forever - A prelude of what the Trees would start doing on their later releases. 7/10 5. Seeing is Believing - Unbelievable guitar playing and has an Doorsy feel yet 80's also. 10/10 6. I See Stars - A very nice blend of jangly guitars and harmony. This is another prelude to their later releases! 9/10 7. Lonely Girl - If the Animals and Doors were a punk outfit. Songs like this would have resulted. Excellent! 10/10 8. Strange Out There - A hypnotic early doorsy tune, not the most exciting song, but well done. Otherwise skippable! 6/10 9. The Turning - Probably my least favorite track on this album. Nice keyboards and has an almost retro feel. The song still works pretty well even though it really never takes off. 6/10 10. Clairvoyance - Almost a grunge song. Slow sludgy guitar into a raw unrelentless chorus. Solid song, great way to close the record. 8/10 Great record to start out with and gives a taste of what they would do in the future. . Nearly a Masterpiece At first listen, when I simply skipped each track after the first one or two minutes, the album didn`t seem too impressive, but I felt obliged to buy it. I bought this album today, after nagging the sales assistant into ordering it daily for several weeks. I have listened to this album several times over now, and even though this album doesn`t have the maturity and quality of Sweet Oblivion and Dust, it has several other pros that make it worth a listen. For one thing, Mark Lanegan is more lively here than on the last two albums. He seems a lot more "into" it, more spontaneous. The songs also take lots of interesting turns along the way, so that, for instance, the 3rd track, Standing On the Edge, begins in a pretty laidback, bluesy manner, but ends in grunge reminiscent of songs off Mudhoney`s Superfuzz Bigmuff album. Another song that is definitely worth your listen, is the last track, called Clairvoyance, where Mark sounds a lot like John Lennon at his best. In other tracks, like the opening track, you can hear a clear Doors` influence, something like the Doors updated to the style of a Seattle garage band. As a whole, the album sounds like the late 60`s meet punk meets garage rock. All in all, this album is worth a listen for any fan of Screaming Trees and Mudhoney. But I think the casual listener should buy one of the Trees` later albums first. For one thing, Lanegan`s voice hasn`t yet reached its prime on this one, neither is Mark Pickerel quite as capable of carrying the groove as his later replacement Barret Martin was. You can see a complete list of all Screaming Trees discography, or go back to the Screaming Trees tabs