Invisible Lantern

An album awash in the gloriously hairy tones of fuzz guitar in all its varieties, Invisible Lantern marks the pinnacle of Screaming Trees’ early psychedelic period. Gary Lee Connor's guitar work jumps out on the first song, “Ivy,” which drizzles a hot stew of toxic distortion over the listener’s consciousness. As if to match his guitarist for pure gnarled attitude, singer Mark Lanegan steps up his attitude on these performances. On “Walk Through to This Side,” “Lines & Circles," and “Invisible Lantern,” Lanegan showcases a complete arsenal of howls and growls, each refined with the requisite proportion of venom, desperation, and contemptuousness. Invisible Lantern was the group’s most gloriously cacophonous work to date, but it also introduced the caustic-throated Lanegan as the emerging soul man of the grunge generation. The album’s centerpiece is “Grey Diamond Desert,” a majestically raggedy cowboy ballad that introduced the grizzled-balladeer persona Lanegan would perfect over the next 20 years.