Whiskey for the Holy Ghost is the second solo album by former Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan. The album builds upon the roots music foundation that Lanegan had established with his debut The Winding Sheet. Released during the grunge explosion of the early 1990s, Whiskey for The Holy Ghost showcases Lanegan's growing maturity as a songwriter and vocalist.
The recording was reportedly a frustrating affair for Lanegan; at one point the singer had to be physically prevented from throwing the master tapes into a river by producer Jack Endino. Despite the album's slow gestation and Lanegan's notorious substance abuse problems, the songs on Whiskey for The Holy Ghost sound remarkably cohesive. Lyrically, Lanegan continues to delve into the darker side of the human experience on songs like "Borracho" and the Biblical "Pendulum" ("Jesus Christ been here and gone, what a painful price to pay").
In an interview on WTF with Marc Maron, Lanegan highlighted the making of Whiskey for the Holy Ghost as an instance in his life where his drug use had a positive effect artistically: "Around the time I did my second solo record I decided to smoke weed, and it made me do some stuff that I never had thought about doing – but of course it turned on me, like all drugs."
"House A Home" was released as a single with an accompanying video. "The River Rise" was used in the 1996 grunge documentary Hype!, where it accompanied a montage filmed at the vigil following Kurt Cobain's death.
Dan Peters of Mudhoney plays drums on "Borracho" and "House A Home."
Track List
"The River Rise" – 4:29
"Borracho" – 5:40
"House a Home" – 3:07
"Kingdoms of Rain" – 3:24
"Carnival" – 3:40
"Riding the Nightingale" – 6:17
"El Sol" – 3:42
"Dead on You" – 3:11
"Shooting Gallery" – 3:32
"Sunrise" – 2:55
"Pendulum" – 2:12
"Judas Touch" – 1:37
"Beggar's Blues" – 5:36
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Mark William Lanegan (born November 25, 1964) is an American alternative rock musician and singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Ellensburg, Washington, Lanegan began his musical career in 1984, forming the psychedelic grunge band Screaming Trees with Gary Lee Conner, Van Conner and Mark Pickerel. During his time in the band, Lanegan also started a low-key solo career and released his first solo studio album, The Winding Sheet, in 1990. Since 1990, he has released a further nine (solo) studio albums, as well as several collaborative efforts, and has received critical recognition and moderate commercial success.
Lanegan has also collaborated with various artists and bands throughout his career, including with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana prior to the group's breakout success with their album, Nevermind, recording an unreleased album of songs by the folk singer, Lead Belly. Lanegan also performed with Layne Staley and Mike McCready in the side band, Mad Season. It was intended that Lanegan was to take over vocals in Mad Season full-time after Staley declined to make a second album. Following the dissolution of Trees in 2000, he became a member of Queens of the Stone Age and is featured on five of the band's albums—Rated R (2000), Songs for the Deaf (2002), Lullabies to Paralyze (2005), Era Vulgaris (2007) and ...Like Clockwork (2013). Lanegan also formed The Gutter Twins with Greg Dulli in 2003, released three collaboration albums with former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell, and contributed to releases by Melissa Auf der Maur, Martina Topley-Bird, Creature with the Atom Brain, Moby, Bomb the Bass, Soulsavers, The Twilight Singers, Unkle, and Mad Season among others.
Lanegan has a distinctive baritone voice that has been described "as scratchy as a three-day beard yet as supple and pliable as moccasin leather" which has been compared to Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits |
