Mark Lanegan and Duke Garwood – Black Pudding

An unassuming and bewitching masterpiece...

Mark Lanegan’s magnificent canon of work – be it as a solo artist or on projects as diverse as The Gutter Twins, QOTSA or his trio of albums with Isobel Campbell – is usually anchored by tales of suffering, addiction and the spectre of death.

So, comparatively speaking, this collaboration with London bluesman Duke Garwood is downright joyous.

Over a dozen gentle, yet luminous, tracks – highlights include the glowing folk of ‘Mescalito’ and the campfire blues of ‘Pentecostal’ – Lanegan sounds positively chipper as he and Garwood soundtrack their mutual celebration of a grizzled life.

Hope rarely sounded so bleak. An unassuming and bewitching masterpiece.

9/10

Words: John Freeman

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