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Saturnalia - Hofstra Chronicle
The Gutter Twins’ latest album was worth the wait
By Tim Lee
Hailed initially, albeit by themselves, as the “Satanic Everly Brothers,” the Gutter Twins finally delivered their long-awaited full length, “Saturnalia.” The group pairs the duo of Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age) in an early 90s grunge super group, or wet dream. Luckily or not, depending upon one’s sensibility, both artists have matured lyrically and musically leading up to the record.
With a clearly defined pedigree, it was fairly certain how cut and dry “Saturnalia” would sound, even before the first listen. Dulli’s ethyl soaked croon, sounds like history’s deepest falsetto next to Lanegan’s fathoms deep growl. Living up to their own billing, and all reasonable expectation, Lanegan and Dulli deliver a release that’s two parts goth and 10 parts soul.
The light (Dulli) and dark (Lanegan) dichotomy is the napalm for “Saturnalia’s” flames. From the first listen, “Saturnalia” crackles in the speakers and songs about love, lust, damnation and redemption (however scarce) are stuck in the listener’s head. Clinging to their sinister claims, the Gutter Twins are devilishly clever songwriters, churning out songs that are equally dense as they are catchy.
Listeners might find it hard to picture themselves singing along with Dulli on the opening track “The Stations” as he sings, “I hear the rapture’s coming; they say he’ll be here soon/ Right now there’s demons crawling all around my room,” yet after one listen, they’ll be humming it for days.
It may be perhaps pre-mature to anoint “Saturnalia” as 2008’s best anything, but it is far more than likely that it will be near the top of many lists come December. There’s something exceedingly dark and troubling behind “Saturnalia’s” infectious charm. A tangible darkness hangs over each note of each melody. The listener will at times want to dance, while at others, crawl under the nearest set of covers and hide.
This is rock ‘n roll at it’s best and most damning. “Saturnalia” is exactly what one would expect form the self proclaimed “Satanic Everly Brothers”. To sum it up in three words: Get Saturnalia NOW!
Sixty Seconds
Colorado Springs Independent
Indy: Similar to the fateful day when chocolate deliciously mixed with peanut butter, take us through how you (The Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees/Queens of the Stone Age) came together to record the recently released debut Saturnalia.
GD: Mark and I were friends first, and the first songs that we played together were sung on my front porch in Los Angeles. So Mark conceived The Gutter Twins in his own mind.
Indy: The song that is seriously kicking our ass is “Front Street,” which appears to be a conversation between a drug addict and his addiction. In fact, don’t you think it’s the kind of song a smiling Michael Madsen would be singing before he cut off someone’s ear?
GD: Nice. Wow. Uh, well, um, I can’t confirm or deny, but I will tell you that you are at least in the parking lot.
Indy: It has to be noted that other side projects — The New
Pornographers and Gnarls Barkley come to mind — have become successful endeavors on their own merit. Has that gone through your mind?
GD: That’s your hope every time you make a record, bro. When I’m doing a record, I don’t think of things from a marketing aspect. Maybe that’s why I’ve traveled the fringes for the past 20 years. [But] I’ll tell you what, if we become Gnarls Barkley ‘08, then I’d imagine we’d both have to rethink our respective careers.
— John Benson
Dulli And Lanegan Are Total Music BFFs
The Gutter Twins sound like every Gen-Xer’s wet dream: Two perennial ’90s favourites, Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan and The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli, coming together to create a project to provide an intersection between northwestern grunge and midwestern college rock while recalling the late ’80s-early ’90s heydays of both — and, of course, released on Sub Pop.
But while most of those things happen to be true about The Gutter Twins and their recently released Saturnalia full-length debut, Lanegan and Dulli’s brainchild isn’t nearly as nostalgic — nor as calculated — as that. Both musicians have plenty of projects to keep them busy. Serial collaborator Lanegan’s an occasional member of Queens Of The Stone Age and has a fruitful solo career, while Dulli fronts The Twilight Singers. The Gutter Twins were simply a friendly pet project between two guys who wanted to make music together whenever possible.
“We wrote and recorded the first songs around Christmas in 2003,” Dulli explains over the phone from his Chicago hotel room. “Then, I was playing piano in Mark’s band on the first leg of the Bubblegum tour.
“Then we didn’t do anything in 2005 because I had moved to Italy to play with an Italian band. Then we did a little bit here and there until, finally, the record was finished between March and September of 2007. But, of the four years, it only really took 40 days to make it.”
Although the album was recorded over a lengthy period of time, which raised continuity questions, Dulli insists that Saturnalia didn’t suffer from occasional abandonment.
“The first four songs, because we didn’t let them get out, they stayed kind of holy. They were very timeless songs. We just had to go back and react with them. I don’t even like telling people which songs they are, because you can’t tell.”
Saturnalia, which finally made its debut in early March, is a nod to teamwork. While the record has its roots fixed firmly in the scenes that birthed Dulli and Lanegan’s careers, Saturnalia isn’t quite the grunge revival some might expect. Dark, gritty and unafraid to get experimental with genre and sound, this is a truly alternative alt.rock record helmed by two of the genre’s most iconic voices. It also sounds completely genuine, which is another nod to the pair’s creative process.
“We have a very natural way of working,” Dulli says. “It’s different from my past work because it’s a collaboration with my friend.
“I’ve had the final say on everything else I’ve done. This is a partnership. To be able to write songs for him to sing, and to have him write songs for me to sing — he’s like my brother. It’s a true thrill to make a record with him. The Gutter Twins is not a one-off. As long as I know Mark, we’ll make records together. It’s never not been a good experience knowing Mark Lanegan.”
Considering that these two guys forged their careers under the DIY ethical code of ’90s grunge culture, it may seem surprising that Lanegan and Dulli were more than happy to use technology to their advantage on Saturnalia.
“Making music is a lot easier now,” explains Dulli. “We did a lot of this record in houses and living rooms.
“A lot of times, Mark and I don’t live in the same town. He’s in L.A. and I’m in New Orleans. It’s fantastic to just be able to email tracks to each other.”
That said, Dulli thinks the record’s musical evolution recalled the old days.
“It was very organic. Somebody would have a lick and he’d play it, and if the other person liked it, then it was built on. There was no, ‘Let’s make it sound like this.’ It went back to the days when we’d play together on my front porch.”
—Jen Zoratti
Saturnalia - Playback
Playback Magazine by Bob Gendron
Music: 4.5/5 Sound: 4/5 “Must Hear”
Rumored for more than five years and hinted at via a succession of collaborations, the prospect of the Gutter Twins - a partnership between inimitable vocalists Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli - has until now existed as more of a tantalizing fantasy than a formal entity. Not that the pair hasn’t given reasons to believe.
Both artists have histories of helping a brother out. Dulli assisted on Lanegan’s Bubblegum album and sat behind the piano for a subsequent tour; Lanegan cut several tracks with Dulli’s Twilight Singers and has often joined the band onstage. Aside from a one-off Gutter Twins gig, these moments were the closest anyone came to experiencing what the two-headed beast might resemble if it ever became reality. In retrospect, it seems the frontmen understood the value of an old showbiz rule: give audiences a taste by stoking desires and teasing curiosities, but make them wait. What a concept.
A triumph of great art over anticipation and expectation, Saturnalia, named after an ancient Roman festival at which the social order of slaves and masters were reversed, finds Dulli and Lanegan in peak form, the singers reaching for transcendental deliverance while contemplating heaven, hell, temptation, and salvation amidst ominous sonic surroundings. Religious references and menacing atmospherics are nothing new to either Lanegan, the former Screaming Trees singer whose solo efforts brood about mood and mortality, or Dulli, the ex-Afghan Whigs leader intimately familiar with guilt, revenge, and personal demons. Yet recurring streaks of spirituality present in the lyrics and music also push the Gutter Twins in a cathartic direction whereby pleas for redemption and forewarnings of inescapable fate alternately swirl with fear and desperation, celebration, and resilience.
Both vocalists trade off between lead and background duties, each showcasing trademark strengths - Dulli letting loose with his soulful falsetto and sensual croon, Lanegan adding emotional weight with a deep baritone croak and sturdy, nicotine-pollinated rasp - to complementary and contrasting effect. Moreover, their propensity to change up vocal patterns on every one of the record’s dozen tunes reflects both the pair’s potent chemistry and music’s striking diversity.
Supported by a host of accompanists - vocalist Martina Topley-Bird, indie singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, and multiple Queens of the Stone Age members/contributors are among the guests - the Gutter Twins play a melodic assortment of modal folk, gritty blues, swampy trance, tribal electronica, and R&B-fused rock. Middle Eastern textures, reverse loops, and exotic instrumentation contribute to the album’s otherworldly feel. Each narrative conjures its own set of mysteries and revelations.
The opening “The Stations” tells of the arrival of an imminent rapture. Slithering guitar lines, somber cellos, and marching beats preceding a climactic “oh, children” call - the cry simultaneously referencing the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” and underscoring one of Saturnalia’s running themes. “Idle Hands” sounds like a throw down between biblical adversaries inside an ancient temple, all swagger and sway until a hail-splitting guitar solo makes clear that reckoning day is night. Similarly, “Bette Noire” intimidates with cavernous vocals, sinister lyrics and lurching grooves. The latter, along with a limitless supply of gripping pop hooks and absorbing riffs, link the stripped-down and electric fare. The Gutter Twins are equally deadly and intuitive on slower material. “Seven Stories Underground” clangs away to junkyard-heap percussion. The equally stunning “I Was in Love With You” slowly turns from light to dark, dazzling with psychedelic chamber strings and heartbreaking beauty.
Aptly, the record unfolds as a series of mis-en-scene soundscapes. Dulli has long stamped his projects with cinematic grandness, and the ambitious results here speak to his auteur visions. He makes no small plans. Vocals are clear and direct; songs prize enveloping ambience, distinct tones, defined spaces, and reverberant acoustics. While heavily layered, the record exhales with human timbres and analog warmth.
Nowhere is such intimacy more evident than on the shivering ballad “Front Street,” Dulli stepping into a subversive role as teh devil’s plaything in acerbic detail singing “I am old as the star that bears you/Black as the bitch who wears you, tears you/Rips you apart and then turns it around” with the malicious intent and soul-stealing determination of someone who has no time - or want - for salvation.
Gutter Twins to Play Sled Island
According to the Edmonton Journal, The Gutter Twins will be performing at this year’s Sled Island Festival in Calgary.
Also performing will be Jose Gonzales (the Twins are currently performing Gonzales’ “Down the Line” in their set), RZA, Of Montreal, Drive-By Truckers, and frequent Dulli collaborator Petra Hayden. The full lineup and schedule will be released May 1.
All Misery/Flowers Video
The Gutter Twins have released a video for the song “All Misery/Flowers” through Myspace.
Video: All Misery / Flowers at Myspace
Gutter Twins Posters
We’ve gotten a ton of feedback about the Gutter Twins poster that we featured last week. If you’re looking for more GT posters, check out Gigposters.com. Not all of them are available on-site, but it should give you enough info to track them down.
My current favorite is the Chicago poster above.
→ The Gutter Twins at GigPosters.com
NYC Review - NYPress.com
New York’s Premier Alternative Newspaper
After a pretty lame applause from the crowd, Greg Dulli emerged to the stage. Smoking his hundredth cigarette of the night, the Gutter Twins co-frontman quickly confronted the crowd as to why the rest of the band remained hidden in the shadows on the side of the stage. Saying something like “We walk off stage, 5 people clap, and we’re supposed to come back out and play more songs,” he criticized the crowd for their incredibly weak call for an encore.
Encores have become an expected thing. Many bands even write out what songs they’ll be playing on their set list, so there’s no element of surprise. Encores are supposed to be an extra special treat for an audience so enthusiastic that they will stand and cheer all night until they hear one last song. But how can you clap when you’re busy sending text messages about how good the show was?
When Dulli referenced how encores were done in Mozart’s day, one fan yelled “Mozart sucks!”
Quickly, Dulli replied “No he doesn’t,” before ripping ever so slightly into that fan.
After a bit more Mozart talk, and a bit more criticism, Dulli pushed the crowd to make some noise to bring out the rest of the band. Luckily for all of us, they were probably always planning on coming out, because although it was better than before Dulli’s actions, it was still a pretty weak encore.
Maybe it’s because New York City crowds go to too many shows and have just gotten to a point where they expect things, but the encores get weaker and weaker with every show I attend. It was on that very stage of Webster Hall less than a year ago that Dinosaur Jr received an even lamer applause, and tore apart the crowd for it. Bands have taken notice and will hopefully stop being so generous and start making their audiences work for that extra special something.
As for the Gutter Twins, their performance was not the reason for the lame response. As expected, the dream frontman tag-team of Greg Dulli (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers) and Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) did not disappoint. Pitchfork described them perfectly when they said “Lanegan sings like he’s rising from the dead, Dulli like he’s falling from grace.” With the band playing flawlessly behind them, the two ‘90s alternative rock idols showcased the dark lullabies of their debut “Saturnalia.”
Dulli played the more charismatic role, while the towering Lanegan seemed almost motionless, letting his deep, dark haunting voice do all the work for him. With very little light on the stage, it was hard to make out even a change of expression on Lanegan’s face, who also managed to be the only member not to smoke during the set.
For their encore, Dulli and Lanegan reached into their extensive back catalogs, with Lanegan’s “Hit The City” acting as a definite highlight.
Saturnalia - San Francisco Bay Times
By Don Baird
The brilliant duo of Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli
I’ve had access to downloading much more music from the Internet lately, and there have been a few new releases by bands of interest. One that was garnering a great deal of attention when I was in London with a couple very well received live U.K. debut dates was The Gutter Twins, a long-time-coming collaboration between Mark Lanegan (of Screaming Trees, Queens of The Stoneage) and Greg Dulli (Afghan Wigs, The Twilight Singers). Their first record together is entitled Saturnalia, and it marks the 20-year anniversary and return to the Sub-pop label for both artists whose first bands debuted there.
I mention this mainly because I’ve always felt like The Screaming Trees were a completely under-recognized part of the whole sub-pop northwest music scene. They released a score of very strong psychedelic wall-of-sound miasmic stoner rock LPs that more than properly showcased the developing vocal prowess of Lanegan as he slid naturally into his world-weary smoke and whiskey, bruised and soulful style. He arguably has one of rock and rolls’ most beautifully mournful and hard living damaged voices - steady, smooth and going down. He’s sexy and brooding and dark. I don’t know as much about Greg Dulli’s career and music, but it seems he traveled a similar path from a hard rocking beginning to a more vocal specific focus and a concentration on soul influences. I know his voice finds the registers on the higher end of the scale. Saturnalia, the album title, is the name of an ancient Roman celebration or festival marked by tomfoolery and reversal of social roles, in which slaves and masters ostensibly switched places.
It seems this pairing up has had the indie kids supergroup excited for quite some time, and it has been said that Lanegan’s apparent battles with substance abuse have been conquered and he came to the aid of Dulli for guidance out of a similar situation. I’ll try not to hold that against them and re-iterate that this might only be a rumor. I often dislike the effect an artist’s road to recovery can have on their music, but it’s different for everyone, I guess.
On first listening I found that perhaps Dulli’s most apparent influence as a collaborator are the lush instrumentations and complex arrangements, often using strings and multiple layers of vocals, creating moody but precise and tightly arranged compositions, each song kind of standing on its own and varying in style in a mini-epic way. Yhe songs are high on drama and deep into some pretty desolate emotional wastelands. The disc’s opening cut, “The Stations,” is a spooky dirge about crucifixion or Armageddon or the rapture, and it features the line, “There but for the grace of God go I,” which I’ve always loved. If this is the beginning of a journey, it’s starting out at a pretty loaded foreboding point.
The second song is “All God’s Children,” and I start to see this is a spiritual journey we’re on, the intro sounding a bit like Led Zeppelins’ “In My Time of Dying.” But it unfolds into a gentle lilting song that grows in intensity and sounds lush with backing vocals, very produced. I’m wondering if this is a Christian record as opposed to a rehab record. “All Misery Flowers” then comes sparsely pounding in with a tale of lengthy torturous love. Lanegan’s voice rasps low and steady in that perfect way that makes him so great, and the music builds to a gradual swelling tension with eerie whale-like sounds that remind me of that Pink Floyd song “Echoes.”
After an underwhelming cut called “The Body,” yet another obvious religious reference for a pretty dull romantic sounding song, the disc kicks in to its strongest stretch of songs. “Idle Hands” opens with a bombastic choral arrangement lifted from some biblical epic soundtrack, and Arabian strings wrap around Mark Lanegan’s best vocal so far. He just has a magnificent voice that has matured and strikes an unwavering new level of emotion and richness. “Circle The Fringes” continues on with a wash of crying violins, then a pleasant waltz-like bass that starts feeling haunted and creepy. Then Lanegan sings, “It’s all right to take me down/Between the hook and the line I took/ It’s all right to drag the lake/ And find the things you love.” Now that’s some wicked songwriting, and the rest of the lyrics are chilling and blunt and have a sense of darkness and diminishing faith and hope. It’s a plunge into a very abysmal and conflicted and scary journey and one you most certainly weren’t expecting to be anything like a fun loving, feel good record of the year based on the works of these two troubled and talented troubadours.
I must admit that after a few songs I started to be bothered by the fact that this record was so entirely filled with biblical references and redemption and the quest for spiritual guidance, and that whole good versus evil thing. It was sort of like when Dylan went Christian or something. It was kind of the last thing I expected from a record made by these two rock and roll outlaws, a story replete with angelic visions and meetings with Gabriel and cries for redemption at Heaven’s gate.
But ultimately the thing that comes through in each of these songs is a completely enveloping emotional engagement. You hear these songs for what they are, and Lanegan and Dulli deliver them with such a masterful and concise collaborative effort that they never fail to connect with the desired point, the gut or heart of the dread, longing, confusion, pain and release of this apparent story. It feels more like a bonafide rock opera than I anticipated, with character development and a definite cinematic quality. Especially on the cut “Bete Noire,” Lanegan sounds like he’s preaching a sermon to lost disciples about Icarus and self destruction and an organ accompaniment gives a ghostly gospel feel while his vocal is smooth and alluring, very sexy, like the hell he warns about is someplace you would follow him down to when your “wings of sin like Icarus will fall.” A voyage of the damned and his voice could lull anyone there, like the serpent in Eden.
By the final cut, “Front Street,” the epic feeling of Saturnalia comes full circle when a couple of simple touches bring to mind one of rock and roll’s most famous rock operas, The Wall by Pink Floyd. At the song’s intro you hear birds chirping, and then they actually drop the phrase “comfortably numb” into one of the most lyrically powerful verses in the entire collection of songs. These are pretty brazen references, and this isn’t the first time Pink Floyd came to mind while listening to Saturnalia. In a sense there are quite a few similarities between the two works, but Saturnalia almost sticks to more traditional religious and mythological themes in spinning a tale of self-discovery, redemption and release. Even though the themes are familiar, it’s definitely a trip worth taking.
The Gutter Twins: Saturnalia The long awaited debut from Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan
Order CD at Amazon.com
