ALBUM REVIEW: Lloyd/Bean – Black Cat, Dark Horse

Tiny Global Productions

Released: 02.06.23

This is as unexpected as it is lovely: a collaboration between UK indie mainstay Robert Lloyd (of The Nightingales) and Janet Beveridge-Bean (of the cruelly underappreciated Freakwater). Born out of COVID doldrums and mutual admiration, Black Cat, Dark Horse is a Lee & Nancy album for the 21^st Century, a loose and warm collection of covers, back catalogue excavations and originals.

Lloyd has always had a country leaning and Bean has form as an excellent collaborator so maybe it’s not that unexpected after all, but it sure is lovely, especially on tracks like the yearning, twanging Heavy Reckonings and Sweet Georgia Black. There are barroom shitkickers and quasi-rockabilly songs too, but it’s the heartbreak country songs that hit hardest. Wonderful stuff.