Of the bands that rose to fame during the late-'80s/early-'90s grunge sweepstakes, the Screaming Trees were always darker, heavier, and trippier than their peers, with a vague folkie undertow to go along with the electric guitars, and lead singer Mark Lanegan's solo career suggests that a lot of the band's musical personality came from him and not just the instrumentalists. From his first solo album, 1990's The Winding Sheet, Lanegan showed he had a distinctive sonic and lyrical outlook to go along with his deep, smoky voice, with one foot stuck in the blues and the other in some imagined landscape where love, luck, and alcohol are tricky commodities in short supply, and he's expanded greatly on that vision over the course of an increasingly ambitious solo career. Has God Seen My Shadow? An Anthology 1989-2011 is a compilation that presents a useful overview of Lanegan's solo work, pulling representative tracks from his first six albums -- from The Winding Sheet to 2004's Bubblegum -- along with a pair of rare single sides and a bonus disc that includes 12 previously unreleased performances. While the instrumental approach and the sophistication of these songs shift as the album goes along (especially on the first part, which largely moves backwards through Lanegan's chronology), the theme and tone remain remarkably consistent, as Lanegan ponders his soul and the earthly circumstances that contain him while languid melodies drift by, and his voice hits a richly emotional chord without sinking into melodrama. The outtakes, covers, alternate takes, and live tapes that fill the album's second half confirm the force and consistency of Lanegan's musical vision, sounding (with rare exceptions) just as emotionally resonant as the material that already made the grade. If the album has a flaw, it's that it ignores the many collaborative projects that feature Lanegan, including his albums with Isobel Campbell and his vocal contributions to albums by the Soulsavers, Queens of the Stone Age, and the Gutter Twins. But as a sampler of Lanegan's solo efforts, it's superb. If you're already a serious Mark Lanegan fan, Has God Seen My Shadow covers a lot of familiar ground, but the 12 unreleased tracks amount to an album's worth on unheard pleasures, and if you've never been introduced to Lanegan's music, this is beautiful, challenging stuff for those dark nights of the soul.