Forget about that alt-country/ "No Depression"/ Y'all-ternative country thing. Like Vic Chesnutt, Mark Lanegan makes rootsy music filled with soul. Really. Scraps At Midnight is filled with Lanegan's husky, smoky groans and wails. It's a more relaxed affair than those old Screaming Trees records Mark played on-- the most interesting moments are those where the coil of his voice slithers up from a quiet spot and pins your ear to the wall with a serpentine tongue.

"Hotel," for instance, is a dark and murky brew that reminds me of Waylon Jennings. Not in twang or in voice, but in its steely pose: "From the pillar to ther post/ I'll kill what I can use the most." It's folksy enough to see at the campfire, but it's wrapped up in fucking goth! Nice! But what about that soul? Hey, it's there, too. He reaches down as low as Marvin Gaye and pulls it up as high as Stevie Wonder, even though he never gets near an octave Celiene Dion would touch. Aided and abetted by the soak of the whiskey, Lanegan sings like the fish who ate the gravel in the bottom of the bowl, and what he's pooping out is solid gold soul indeed.

If I can go for the kill line that the boys at Sub Pop can start putting on posters, Scraps At Midnight is the backwoods soul that was missing from those Afghan Whigs records. I know Greg Dulli's got a thing for the Motown, but I have yet to hear him spit it out as languidly as Lanegan does. While there are a few rock out moments-- with only the final number staking claim in the Trees camp of Northwest/ swamp-psych-- this disc fits the Midnight billing. Soak your liver, then your ears. Dig.

-Jason Josephes

"Hotel"

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