Anthology: SST Years

Not quite a summary of the band’s earliest days – in keeping with the subtitle, there are no selections from their first album Clairvoyance – Anthology is still a well-chosen overview of the Screaming Trees as they steadily built up both a catalog and a reputation in the 80s indie rock underground. Mark Lanegan’s more youthful voice has a bit of the crag of his later years if not the full pathos, but he’s an engaging frontman regardless, while Gary Lee Connor’s hooky guitar work and the Van Connor/Mark Pickerel rhythm section results in solid garage/psych grooves.