Duke Garwood – Garden Of Ashes (Heavenly)

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London-based blues musician Duke Garwood begins the new year in top form, unleashing his 7th album Garden of Ashes, an ambient and atmospheric odyssey which drips with post-apocalyptic melancholy and madness.
Following up from 2015’s widely acclaimed Heavy Love, Garwood’s latest venture attempts to capture and channel the artist’s considerable anger, harnessing its raw power as fuel for something more refined and beautiful. Garden serves as Garwood’s vehicle for an almost biblical story, a recounting of “midnight in the garden of love”, a paradise which he believes is “being destroyed to satisfy the greedy money people”.

The initial notes of the album’s opener, Coldblooded, ebb and flow, a lazy jangling reminiscent of heat waves and lethargic sunrises, the nuclear-wasteland atmosphere enhanced by Garwood’s grizzled voice crooning an apathetic tale of “wrong and good gone bad”. Garwood engages the listener in conversation, commenting on the lonely, empty world under the sun and offers them the chance to chance to change the fate of the garden, a half-hearted attempt to alter the course of fate, framed sardonically by his repeated use of the phrase “double or nothing”.

The atmosphere is further explored in Sonny Boogie, in which Garwood details the new midnight, in which he waits for “the stars to fall”. Musically the track is enveloping and hypnotic; the guitar coils and pulses around you, as a simple, repetitive drum beat drives the songs forward in a trance-like state. The hypnosis is furthered by Garwood’s dream-like insistence that the “sun has moved to a better world”, a statement continuously echoed by a chorus of angelic sounding female performers. Eventually the medley of voices recedes, and Blue begins. Arguably weaker than the songs which precede it, Blue takes a lighter tone, a brief respite from the relentless gloom. Whilst it is not a bad song by any means, it fails to leave much of an impression and serves to break the tempo that connects Boogie to the next few tracks.

Days Gone Old sees Garwood adopted a slower, raspier voice, in which he appears to address a lover, or more likely the memory of a lover. The guitar is sombre and measured, whilst the bass and drums play a minimal role, the music serving as an atmospheric highlight to Garwood’s tired and weary voice. The sorrowful guitar fades slowly, before perking back up again in the form of the albums shortest number, Sing To The Sky. This song sees Garwood gently picking away, as he relaxes in “this dusty shade”, gentling recounting how he “sings to the sky”. It’s a brief moment of tenderness and peace in which the underlying anger which fuels the man is temporarily dormant, and serves as an introduction to the eponymous Garden of Ashes.

As the sixth song, Garden of Ashes marks the halfway point in the album, and a thematic change within the lyrics. Instead of lamenting the burning of the garden, Garden of Ashes sees Garwood looking for the beauty in its destruction, for hope in its rejuvenation. A sensual, and spiritual atmosphere, the lyrics see two lovers waltzing through the ashes, blissfully ignorant of its destruction. This new focus on love is continued in Heat Us Down, in which a sexy, soulful tempo drives lyrics of acceptance; two tired outlaws, scared and weary, finding time to appreciate the beauty of the flames as they burn the world around them.

Slower than any other song, Hard Dreams combines the hypnotic elements of Sonny Boogie with the heart-breaking sorrow and tempo of Days Gone Old. Perhaps one of the albums most relaxing songs, Hard Dreams with its deliberately mysterious aura and echoing vocals comes off as an interesting mix of blues and prog, the sonic representation of the garden’s ashes gently settling. This serenity is followed by Move On Softly, a soothing, soul-inspired piece in which Garwood urges both the ashes and the listener to move on through life. Trailing off at the halfway point, Garwood lets the song become musically focussed, a soulful guitar taking centre stage, before drifting away in the wake Garwood’s tender lullaby, Sleep. A lovingly sentimental song, Garwood appears to have lost his rage, the destruction of the garden no longer the focus of his gaze. Instead this tender ballad sees the man lovingly croon to his lover, offering to “brush the night right from [their] hair”, his efforts solely focussed on comforting them rather than nursing his anger.

And so, much like the Ouroboros, the album comes full circle in the form of the final song, Coldblooded the Return. A retelling of the opening track, The Return is a slower, more dreamlike clone of the former, Garwood’s sardonic apathy replaced by a world weary knowing, and a sense of calm acceptance. Marking the final chapter of the apocalyptic odyssey, it acts as the perfect send-off, having shown the artist’s emotional transformation over Garden’s course, Garwood succeeds in his goal of distilling the “frustrating feeling we all have right now into something more focused”, creating something beautiful out of his despair and anger.
Oliver Hooper

Garden Of Ashes is released today by Heavenly/Liberation.

 

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