Screaming Trees : Sweet Oblivion : 1994

 

 Where many of their Seattle-based contemporaries dealt in reconstructed Black Sabbath and Stooges riffs, Screaming Trees fused '60s psychedelia and garage rock with '70s hard rock and '80s punk. Over the course of their career, their more abrasive punk roots eventually gave way to a hard-edged, rootsy psychedelia that drew from rock and folk equally.

"Sweet Oblivion" is Screaming Trees' 6th full length album that was released on September 8, 1992. The recording was the band's highest landmark in terms of album sales, and was the closest they would come to ever achieving mainstream success.

Although widely associated with grunge, the band's sound incorporated hard rock and psychedelic elements.

Sweet Oblivion's lead single, the jumpy hard rocker "Nearly Lost You," proved itself a highlight on the hugely successful, Seattle-themed Singles soundtrack. But even though The Screaming Trees stacked up quite well against their more famous peers in that particular showcase, the exposure didn't make them stars.

Perhaps it was because "Sweet Oblivion" had been released several months before Singles, and the band thus couldn't build a sense of anticipation for a new album release.

For whatever reason, Singles didn't push sales of "Sweet Oblivion", as the latter only scraped the lower reaches of the Billboard charts. And that's a shame, because the record is quite good ."Nearly Lost You" is a standout, of course, but "Dollar Bill","Shadow of the Season" and "Butterfly" are nearly as impressive.

Mark Lanegan's raspy voice conveys a weary wistfulness that adds an unexpected dimension to the group's otherwise macho garage-psych grunge. The Trees no longer sound all that punkish, trading in some of their early, noisy fury for a more '70s-indebted hard rock sound, but it's done with a graceful power that proves they were at least the equal of their more famous fellow scenesters.

Unfortunately, the four-year hiatus between "Sweet Oblivion" and its follow-up "Dust", ensured that the band would be forever relegated to cult status.


               TRACKS

     01. Shadow Of The Season  4:34    
    02. Nearly Lost You       4:07    
    03. Dollar Bill       4:35    
    04. More Or Less       3:11    
    05. Butterfly               3:22    
    06. For Celebrations Past 4:09    
    07. The Secret Kind       3:08    
    08. Winter Song       3:43    
    09. Troubled Times       5:20    
    10. No One Knows       5:13    
    11. Julie Paradise       5:05    

NO  ONE  KNOWS   LYRICS




Don't turn away, you haven't yet awakened
Why don't you stay, remember what you said
Ten thousand miles and everyone's mistaken

Look where you've been

Where every woman's wasted

All the while you've been sleeping
Drifting on a wind never blown
Tomorrow you'll wake up aching
Wondering how, when no one really knows

Don't speak a word of all that you've been saving
If there isn't time then you should let it go

Into the fire and bring back all you've taken
Once more alone you'll never let it show

All the while you've been sleeping

Drifting on a wind never blown
Tomorrow you'll wake up aching

Wondering how, when no one really knows

Now what have I done wrong
Can't you tell me what have I done wrong
Baby tell me what have I done wrong

Can't you tell me what have I done wrong
Baby tell me what have I done wrong
Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me now

MP3 : # 320   Size :    111 MB