Get your head in the Gutter

More than four years in the making, The Gutter Twins’ debut album Saturnalia is worth the wait.

The group is a collaboration between two cult-favorite 90’s-alt-rock band front men – The Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees. But it never comes off as “’90s-alt-rock made in the ’00s” in the same way as, say, late Garbage, nor does it suffer from typical supergroup half-assedness.

No, Saturnalia is well-constructed, timely and made by two musicians with fantastic vocal and ideological chemistry.

It’s a dark and introspective album, preferring an overall mood to a series of snappy songs. That’s not to say it’s melodramatic or indulgent – it’s full of hooks and memorable melodies, but the way they build to create the whole album is more important than what they do for their respective songs.

Perhaps what’s most alluring about Saturnalia is that it feels like it’s teetering on edges. It’s soft for the most part, allowing its dynamics to change only for loud, dramatic bursts, and it’s written in minor keys, allowing it to get brighter but never quite go major. The lyrical territory ranges from weird sexuality and violence (“Little girls might twitch at the way I hitch / But when I burn it’s a son of a bitch” in “All Misery/Flowers”) to religious reference (“I hear the rapture’s coming / They say he’ll be here soon” in “The Stations”) .

Of course, one of those edges goes from poignancy into pretentiousness, and occasionally The Gutter Twins fall off. “Idle Hands,” for instance, includes such lyrics as, “It’s all right to drag the lake / And find the things you love / They won’t wait in line to see me float / Asleep above the waves.”