Scraps at Midnight

Mark Lanegan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 21, 1998)
• Original Release Date: July 21, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sub Pop
• ASIN: B000007SRM
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,430 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #14 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Singer-Songwriters

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With his third solo album, Scraps at Midnight, Mark Lanegan continues a storytelling vision that began in 1990 with The Winding Sheet and, more recently, the serene Whiskey for the Holy Ghost. In a swirling and peaceful follow-up, Lanegan proffers the fruit of another rich collaboration with Mike Johnson. Like the stark and dry land of Lanegan's roots in eastern Washington, the songwriting on Scraps at Midnight is lonely and sparse. The shadowy "Bell Black Ocean" and "Hotel" capture a harmony of lyrics and music rare among contemporary musicians. "Stay" and "Wheels" reveal Lanegan's counterpoint--his ability to craft warm and optimistic classics for our wanderings. Thoreau wrote, "The true harvest of my life is intangible... a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched." Scraps at Midnight is a bit of Lanegan's star-dust harvest. His restless spirit, with huérfanos, vagabonds, spruce forests, and bourbon glasses, hovers in the space between the notes. --Brad Doll

New Musical Express

[T]here is great beauty here: in the skeletal piano and guitar of "Bell Black Ocean" and the breathtaking melancholy of "Last One In The World". What's more, as [Mark] Lanegan's lyrics unfold (all written, as usual, with the chill clarity of the Old Testament), it becomes obvious that despite the funereal tone of his voice his spirit remains unbowed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NO TEENY-BOPPERS ALLOWED..., January 4, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Scraps at Midnight (Audio CD)

Fans of Mark Lanegan had to wait five long years for his third solo LP, SCRAPS AT MIDNIGHT. Was it worth the wait? You bet your brooding ass it was! After a few years spent taking just about any drink or drug handed to him, Lanegan surfaces with an album that sketches a world with its own everlasting sense of regret and loss. It also features Lanegan's wry wit, excellent lyrics, and elegantly raw voice. In other words, poison to teeny-boppers.

The album opens with "Hospital Roll Call," a Sergio Leone type western dirge with Mark growling "sixteen" over and over again ("16" was Lanegan's room number in a rehab clinic). An effective overture, the song gives way to "Hotel," one of the most darkly affecting songs in Lanegan canon. Lanegan has often downplayed this side of his musical character but when he sings "I remember your face/But it's been a long, long day/And what I did along the way/I wouldn't care to say" it is delivered with the sort of world-weariness that you would associate with Lightnin' Hopkins or Hank Williams. It is, simply put, a gripping voice.

Mike Johnson is back, co-producing the album with Mark and helping him paint musical landcapes that give a perfect backdrop to Lanegan's often mesmerizing songs. Lanegan, like Seattle contemporary Chris Cornell, remains one of the most versatile singers of his generation, and the ex-Screaming Trees frontman proves it here with songs ranging from the delicate "Bell Black Ocean" and "The Last One In The World" to the intense anxiety of "Waiting On A Train" and the epic "Because Of This." As with his previous masterpiece, WHISKEY FOR THE HOLY GHOST, Lanegan handles all of it with apparent ease, although many of the songs on this album will leave you feeling at times that there is somebody watching you outside your window. SCRAPS AT MIDNIGHT features Mark Lanegan carving out a style that he can distinctly call his own, simply because nobody else is doing this kind of music with such authenticity. Some might find it "morbid." Again, no teeny-boppers allowed...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 3/4 Stars, May 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Scraps at Midnight (Audio CD)

His best album. Somber folk-blues-rock with beautiful atmospheric production & arrangements (thanks to Mike Johnson). The slide guitar & piano on the tender, perfect Bell Black Ocean are alone worth the purchase. Of course, the main attraction hear is Lanegan's voice, a throaty nicotine-scarred, white-blues which all fans of Waits, Cave, Lee Hazlewood, etc. will appreciate. Much, much, much better than anything the Screaming Trees have done. There's a single for Stay which is worth seeking out for the b-sides (trad. folk song Death Don't Have No Mercy & the 13th Floor Elevators' haunting, country-tinged Slide Machine).

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sublime, a real men perspective and point of view, January 10, 2005

By 

J. H. Infante (Guadalajara, Ja, Mex) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scraps at Midnight (Audio CD)

What does have this man that every song he creates is beautifull? in a completely men perspective Mr Lanegan creates melancholic and appealing atmospheres, so folk, southern , grey , very enjoyable, Mr Lanegan thougths are 100% male and its about time a rigth and perfect image of real men (like i consider myself)were showed by a singer/songwritter like this great performer, poetry surrounds every melody, and beautifull lyrics fill that acoustic riffs that are the main ingredient in his albums, it worths to get every Mark Lanegan recording.
HM