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Rating: It's a bit sad now to read on the CD reissues of Screaming Trees albums the sticker "featuring Mark Lanegan from Queens of the Stone Age." Comparatively, it feels a bit like finding the label "With John Paul Jones from Them Crooked Vultures" on the cover of Led Zeppelin III. It's a pity that Screaming Trees are generally so underappreciated. I myself discovered them some time ago purely by chance here on DeBaser while searching for some grunge bands beyond the usual well-known names.
Initially, they didn't capture me, but after a couple of years, revisiting the album, I realized I was dealing with a product of true quality, the result of a group that undoubtedly ranks among the best rock specimens confusingly labeled as grunge.
The grunge label, in which Screaming Trees, having formed already in 1985, appear as one of the earliest examples. The Washington state group debuted the same year with the EP "Other Worlds," which already showed their unique style of blending garage rock with psychedelic elements. "Clairvoyance," from 1986, is their first full-length.
A raw and perhaps immature album, but much less trivial than it might seem. The strictly rock component of the album consists of typically grunge clattering, understood as impetuous hard rock with punk and metal elements. Contributing to this is the sparse production, which however does not disturb the enjoyability of the album.
An essential element of the album is the psychedelia, expressed through the keyboards in "The Turning" and "You Tell Me All These Things", the hallucinogenic choirs in "Orange Airplane", and especially in the expert melodic insertions achieved through catchy riffs and broad and flavorful guitar solos and in the phenomenal voice of Mark Lanegan, which pairs well with the punk fierceness of bass and drums. For as raw and immature as "Clairvoyance" may be, its different components blend perfectly, giving the album great depth. The heterogeneity of the whole is also good: the calm and drunken "Standing on the Edge", the almost British heavy metal flavor of "Forever", the cheerful "Seeing and Believin", the explosive finale of "Lonely Girl".
An album that, with all its objective quality, its historical value, and its simple beauty, you end up loving. Lovers of rock that is hard but not ignorant should not miss out on this rare gem.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Orange Airplane (03:02)
Can't take a train you know they move too slow
Got to take to the airport where I want to go
Heart beating like a million miles an hour
Listening the wind is turning sweet to sour
Orange airplane
Take me to a new day
Little orange airplane
Take me to a new day
I land downtown in the middle of the day
I'm coming down hard so get out of the way
Looking up to heaven trying to find a clue
Said I'm too far gone, got to pay my dues on
An orange airplane
Take me to a new day
Come on
Little orange airplane
Take me to a new day
I'll be heading into orbit on a Sunday morning
My legs are broken and my ears are ringing
Orange airplane takes me to my home
Take me to the graveyard and bury my bones on
An orange airplane
Take me to a new day
Come on
Little orange airplane
Take me to a new day
Take me far away
On an orange airplane
03 Standing on the Edge (05:39)
Standing by myself on the sidewalk
Nothing in this world could make me talk
I'm nailed to this floor where there is no air
Alone I see myself and stare
Locked inside this world you gave me
It's lonely here through the smoke I can't see clear
And I know all the ways and I'll try
And I've seen all the places I get eyed
If I bear myself in the yard
Would the end of the day always seem so hard
Wait for the world to turn around
Then I won't go up or down
Gentle winds must sometimes sit
The face that looks on in my mirror
And I know all the ways and I can try
And I've seen all the places where I hide
If I bear myself out in the yard
Would the end of the day always be so hard
Standing on the edge of the wall
Sometimes I get too close and I fall, yeah
And I know all the ways and I can try
And I've seen all the places where I hide
If I bear myself in the yard
Would the end of the day always be so hard
Well all the nights last a thousand years
When you're in a time that feels so near
I'll just say you were the word I found
And then I won't go up or down
And I know all the ways and I can try
And I've seen all the places where I hide
If I bear myself in the yard
Would the end of the day always be so hard
Standing on the edge of the wall
Sometimes I look down and I fall, yeah
Just standing on the edge of the wall
I always go to far and I fall, yeah
05 Seeing and Believing (03:35)
Moving slowly in the morning light
Waiting for you to come along
Understand it's time for a change
Now I know I've got nothing to say
Looking through me like there's no one there
Journey to the great nowhere
If you are seeing what you're believing it's nothing new
Don't say you're seeing what you're believing
I've been there too, yeah
Today you bring yourself around
Only walking in the shade
Say I should change before it's too late
Now I know I've got nothing to say
Looking through me like there's no one there
Send me to the great nowhere
If you are seeing what you're believing it's nothing new
Don't say you're seeing what you're believing
I've been there too, yeah
Moving slowly through the morning light
I waited for you to come along
Too bad that it's too late
You should know I've got nothing to say
I'll be alone and I don't care
Journey to the great nowhere
If you are seeing what you're believing it's nothing new
Don't say you're seeing what you're believing
'Cause I know too
08 Strange Out Here (04:27)
Were you around
Spring came today
Outside your room
You were away
All the lost hours spent in the cold
I didn't care
I dreamed you were there
Now I'm counting my chances gone 1 2 3
If you see me today would you remember me
Say you are free why don't you really live
You gotta hate forever never can forgive
And it's clear
I learned to trust the rain
I'm drifting out of reach
It's kind of strange out here
In this city built on broken glass
And the carcasses of a million dead sheep
Where the blood runs thick down third street
Down the gutter to the railroad station
And takes a train
Up, over these big mountains to the sea
That's where you gotta be
You gotta go to the sea
Yesterday I'm so glad to forget
I was so sane all life remains
But think of the time you learned to love
The rain in the park we walked in the dark
Now I'm counting my chances gone 1 2 3
If you saw me today would you remember me
Been raining forever, go ahead and leave
But you gotta hate forever, you never can forgive
So clear
I can't distrust the rain
I'm drifting out of reach
It's very strange out here
09 The Turning (02:44)
Sand on the beach beats a hole through my hand
Hands of the clock stand where I have to walk
All the way around
Turn upside down
Just look around to the turning
Everything inside is burning
Sign on the wall that I don't understand
It's just a part of a dream that I had
Feet on the ground
Head in the sound
Just look around to the turning
Everything inside is burning
Water so cool that its thoughts seem to soothe
Some things are real that I don't have to prove
Now you are learning
Rome now is burning
Just look around to the turning
Everything inside is burning
Just look around to the turning
Everything inside is burning
10 Clairvoyance (04:03)
Clairvoyance, clairvoyance
Wild into the dead of night
Around the corner I see a light
See it coming my way run
Standing on the ground waiting for the sign
Whoa I can't go on I can't sleep
I can't last more than another week
'Cause I know what's coming then
Forgive my lies, I see it's too much
Doing all I can not to see your plan
I know it's no good
No good to keep you waiting
Whoa I can't go on I can't sleep
I can't last more than another week
'Cause I know what's coming then
'Cause of my clairvoyance
Daylight isn't here
But it's a part of us
I see it coming my way run
Standing on the grass waiting for the sun
Whoa I can't go on I can't sleep
I can't last more than another week
'Cause I know what's coming then
'Cause I know what's coming then
'Cause of my clairvoyance, clairvoyance
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