The Twilight Singers: A Stitch in Time

Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan fans waiting for the duo’s Gutter Twins release get a little teaser on A Stitch in Time. A lead-off cover of Massive Attack’s “Live With Me” jettisons the original’s smooth desperation for a much more unrelenting and menacing tone — which, really, isn’t much of a surprise. Lanegan’s solo work and his time with the Queens of the Stone Age have shown him to be no stranger to the shadows. Dulli, meanwhile, has always been an unflinching chronicler of his own demons, even as he turns those same demons toward the listener with a come-hither leer. “Flashback” (a Fat Freddy’s Drop cover), for its part, finds Lanegan and Dulli in full evening strut mode, and combined with “They Ride”, makes A Stitch in Time sound like the vibrant link between the Twilight Singers and Dulli’s former group, the Afghan Whigs (in fact, former Whig Rick McCollum guests on “They Ride”). On the gentler side of carnality, “Sublime” (featuring Joseph Arthur) boasts gorgeous harmonies, and the the plaintive “The Lure Would Prove Too Much” shows that Dulli’s still in touch with his inner woo-er (even if it’s weakened by a reliance on snippets of answering machine messages). A Stitch in Time is a raucous, hard-driving blast of an EP, continuing the insistent power of Powder Burns, even if the subject matter is “lighter”. This is one that fans of neither the Twilight Singers or the Afghan Whigs should miss.