• Record Label: Sub Pop
  • Release Date: Mar 4, 2008
User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 16 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 16
  2. Negative: 1 out of 16

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  1. NJstixx
    Mar 22, 2008
    9
    As a huge Twilight Singers fan, I thought I'd be disappointed with this...Not so! Repeated listens bring a whole new meaning to the Gutter Twins....God's Childeren and Idle Hands will be appreciated right of the bat, but other tunes such as "Circle the Fringes" , and the rest will capitivate you after several listens. I hope these guys keep making music together.
  2. BobS.
    Mar 9, 2008
    9
    Good.
  3. BulletMagazine
    Mar 29, 2008
    9
    Intense, dark, brooding - but a sense for the melodic which makes this an essential listen.
  4. RobG.
    Mar 11, 2008
    10
    f**king great. Mark & Greg thank you.
  5. Raindog'sRants
    Mar 21, 2008
    9
    I've come to expect nothing from excellence from these two guys. The record is not dissimilar to the more aggressive Twilight Singers stuff steeped in biblical references and downtrodden perspectives.

Awards & Rankings

Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 28 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 28
  2. Negative: 0 out of 28
  1. Saturnalia is mysticism and hedonism, saints and sinners, dark and light, but this is no clear-cut Manichaean collaboration. Both Lanegan and Dulli represent this, both contain all the good and the bad they sing about, sometimes at different moments but very often together, and it's that joined duality, that very disturbingly human quality, telling us things about ourselves we'd rather not acknowledge, that makes the album so absolutely alluring.
  2. Saturnalia, is teeming with the kind of raw and gritty music one might expect to hear kicked around in, well, the gutter. And considering the project is a collaboration between Mark Lanegan and Greg Dulli, that's certainly not a bad thing.
  3. It’s in those moments [of appealing moment of vulnerability] as well as in the swarming chorus of 'God’s Children' that the duo hit their true heights, and those same qualities are the ones most likely to mark this album as an enduring piece of work from two icons of a class that has long since graduated.