Swamp Dogg’s Swamp Dogg Contemplates The Afterlife belongs in the long line of soul records where age sharpens the writing instead of softening it. The album looks at mortality, memory, belief, and unfinished business with the plain speech that has always made Swamp Dogg hard to categorize. A useful earlier reference is Solomon Burke’s 2002 album Don’t Give Up on Me, a late-career soul record that gave an older singer room to use experience as the central instrument.