The album’s 12 songs are spectral and sinewy, often defined by the spaces in between the sounds. A ghost’s whistle weaves itself around a pulsing single note on ‘Lonesome Infidel’; ‘Feast To Famine’s hard luck story floats above a guitar part so strung out and washed with distortion it’s become barely recognisable. It’s soul music for anyone who’s long since left the crossroads.

Over the last decade, Mark Lanegan and Duke Garwood have worked in tangent on 2013’s ‘Black Pudding’ as well as on Lanegan’s solo records (Garwood contributed to 2012’s ‘Blues Funeral’ and 2017’s ‘Gargoyle’ after which he toured as part of Lanegan’s band). Writing and recording was split between studio collaboration and sharing music between Garwood’s home in London and Lanegan’s in Los Angeles.

While ‘Black Pudding’ put Garwood’s mercurial guitar centre stage, ‘With Animals’ is constructed from a different set of tools. Analogue and dust flecked, it sounds like Lanegan and Garwood have been holed up in a 60s recording studio while the apocalypse rages outside. Tracks sit on loops that sounds like they’re straight out of ‘There’s A Riot Goin’ On’ while sparse melodies nod in the direction of British electronic producers like Burial or Boards Of Canada. Which is not to say it sounds like any of those things – this is a weird world all of their own design.

The album’s most direct, most affecting track is the closing ‘Desert Song’. Over two and a little more minutes of acoustics, Lanegan pleads the impossible: “Please let me continue this dream / even though it can’t be believed.” It’s as pure and spontaneous an ending to an album as one could hope for – a catharsis of sorts and a piece of true alchemy created by two brilliantly singular talents. Here’s to many more of those sunrises… and to those midnight gatherings too.

LP pressed on 180g black vinyl with inner sleeve, black on silver foil and digital download code.