Black Pudding
Mark Lanegan is known for his dark bluesy growl of a voice, which has graced albums by Screaming Trees, Queens of the Stone Age, and The Gutter Twins, as well as a solo catalog that grows with each year. *Black Pudding* is a collaborative effort with the relatively obscure multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood, who toured with The Gutter Twins and has worked with The Orb, Josh T. Pearson, Kurt Vile, and Wire. The nocturnal sounds here are no surprise. Lanegan\'s voice demands the music be vampiric, for it has to avoid sunlight to be effective; the self-explanatory \"Death Rides a White Horse\" and the more mysterious \"Driver,\" with its mellotron-simulating guitar, are two examples of this approach. The drum loops guiding \"Mescalito\" sound odd in their context. However, when they return for \"Cold Molly,\" they\'re further accompanied by additional samples of keyboards and found sounds. Garwood smooths things over with gentle guitar instrumentals, which start and end this solid, endearing record.
Mark Lanegan is back to working with a musical co-pilot here, though British multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood's accompaniments are rather subsumed by Lanegan's outsized personality. Black Pudding offers scarifying dirges and tough-guy sensitivity in reliable abundance.
By plunging impassively into their own hearts of darkness, Lanegan and Garwood demonstrate that there’s still plenty of life lurking muddy waters of blues.
Though Black Pudding marks the first time that singer Mark Lanegan and multi-instrumentalist Duke Garwood have recorded together, it isn't the first time they've collaborated.
Although Mark Lanegan scoffs at the notion that he's a blues singer, there are few other vocalists of his generation that have a deeper unde...
Clash reviews 'Black Pudding', the new collaborative album from Mark Lanegan and Duke Garwood
Mark Lanegan and Duke Garwood - Black Pudding review: Dark Mark goes western.