“WHEN I was young and pretty, I could’ve become a star,” says Duke Garwood. Now that he’s grizzled and not so young, plenty of people are urging him on, not least Mark Lanegan, another singer noted for his deep, gravelled voice.

Lanegan calls this a “mind-blowing masterpiece”, and there are moments when he might be right. Many of the single tracks do startle with a growling sense of wonder, including opener Sometimes, the title track, Suppertime In Hell and Honey In The Ear, which tells of the singer’s tinnitus caused by touring with Kurt Vile. Shuffle the songs on an iPod and they sound interesting; taken all in one go, and their limitations become clear.

Nearly all the songs are similar in mood and beat, and this slow, deep, scuzzy album certainly has something to say in a wrinkled blues kind of a way. The charm of Garwood is that he does things all his own way, but this does lower the horizon a little.