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The Saturnalia were Roman festivals in honor of the god Saturn characterized by banquets, offerings to the gods, and a temporary overturning of the social order, where slaves became free and participated in the event, indulging in vices and orgies along with their masters.
Listening to this album, one indeed senses a strong liturgical oppression, with the weight of faith recurring multiple times in the lyrics. On the other hand, there is no trace of bacchanals or celebrations, but, as one might expect from dark vocalists like Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli, the scene is dominated by the dichotomy of death and life, alongside their companions desire, passion, and delirium.
From the splendid opening of "The Stations," followed by the slow progress of "God's Children," a deep, leaden connection between the tracks becomes evident. In the former, you find yourself looking back to see if your inner demons are still on your heels, when, towards the end, you're embraced by a martial drum that dictates the rhythm, saves you, leads you into "God's Children," and opens the way to a melodic break where you can invoke a (perhaps ephemeral) life in desire and passion. The result on a neural level is a sense of sensory dizziness that makes you plummet as if in a dream and soon materializes in the dark hurricane of emotions in "All Misery/Flowers" ("I woke from a dream, I was crying, I saw an animal with fiery eyes like mine, I saw my true love...she was there selling flowers, were they forget-me-nots, white lilies, or red roses? Then from afar, whom did I see coming on horseback? On a pale white horse, he came fast as lightning...").
In this scenario, the two protagonists move at ease. Dulli at times chases the ghosts of his Afghan Whigs, see the "big riff" of guitar submerged in anguish and breathlessness of the epic "Idle Hands," while Lanegan continues to wear his long dark coat, now tattooed on his skin and soaked in whiskey and smoke. His appearances, full of nighttime blues, sublimate the more rock parts of the other, sometimes like a morphine injection into the veins (notably in the break of "Circle The Fringes"). It's a pity for the broken rhythm a couple of times midway through the two hypothetical sides by out-of-context tracks like "I Was In Love With You" or "The Body," where a glimpse of sun irritates and blinds instead of warming limbs.
The rest, however, more than compensates for these mishaps and provides the precious, bitter closure of "Front Street": "life is a shame and your hands are stained, you walk in chains and change your name...go wherever you want, but don't forget me...take with you even a memory, if it's all you have left...drive away your pain with a blow of rain and bury it with a spade or the blade of a razor...".
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