The Afghan Whigs: In Spades

THE AFGHAN WHIGS: IN SPADES (2017)

1) Birdland; 2) Arabian Heights; 3) Demon In Profile; 4) Toy Automatic; 5) Oriole; 6) Copernicus; 7) The Spell; 8) Light As A Feather; 9) I Got Lost; 10) Into The Floor.

The Afghan Whigs persist, but that awesome shining window in time seems to be closing on them. Three years after Do To The Beast, they managed not to split or fade away; instead, they mellowed out a bit — it is quite telling that the album begins with a cello-led hybrid of jazz and modern classical (ʽBirdlandʼ), instead of the usual shotgun blast that we typically expect of them. This is not to say that the entire album is soft and sentimental; the shotgun blast is simply delayed until the second track — but it is a warning that, perhaps, Greg Dulli has aged enough to allow himself to lay bare his melancholic broodings without the necessity of looking back in anger.

The good news is that the sincere, intelligent, and deeply bitter vibe of the Whigs is still inherent­ly present in every song — making this a good album for sincere, intelligent, and bitter people all over the world. There is still no better actor to impersonate a liver-impaired Prometheus than Greg Dulli, and he dutifully performs that function for 36 minutes (and it is a good thing that the record is that short: 5 more minutes and he'd not survive without a liver transplant). He is also still a master of atmosphere, creating totally convincing, overwhelming, and melodic walls of sound that can plunge you into deep depression on an almost Floydian level, such as the one he builds at the end of the album with ʽInto The Floorʼ: very simple ingredients (preferably putting a minor key piano melody at the heart of the mix, where it would nicely interact with distorted guitars and other instruments), very simple effect, but... good. A healthy sound.

Unfortunately, on the level of individual songs this is a bit of a retreat from the high benchmark of Do To The Beast. Some of the things tried out here are new, but they do not work to the man's advantage — such as the robotic industrial textures of ʽArabian Heightsʼ, a good song that, I dunno, probably could have been a lot better if it weren't so monotonous. There is a build-up here: two minutes into the song, storm trooper guitars open rapid fire and almost drown you in feed­back, and a little later on, a bit of Van Halen-esque guitar rains even more firey death on the battlefield, but then it all goes away and the song never capitalizes on its promise (the fade-out coda is a particular bummer). The other brutally heavy rocker on the album, ʽCopernicusʼ, also never advances far beyond its basic stop-and-start four-note riff, and its own wall of sound is messy and confusing (for instance, there are vocal harmonies here, but they sound almost merged with the guitars, which is cool in theory — little voices inside them hollow strings! — but is dis­orienting in practice).

It also seems as if Dulli has been on a really heavy classic soul kick lately: tiny soul and even gos­pel influences pop up all over the place, and ʽI Got Lostʼ is his own bona fide contribution to the genre — more Otis Redding than the Afghan Whigs, though far more suicidal than anything old Otis had ever written (then again, Otis is dead and Greg Dulli is alive, which is just one more of those weird mysteries of nature). This is very welcome, as is his fling with chamber pop on ʽOrioleʼ (a song that probably does not even need its heavy rhythm section), but, again, this all seems more like curious promises than great realizations. Each of the songs has an idea that never works out quite as well as it should.

Even so, embryonic ideas and wild genre mergers whose effect is ruined by unfortunate produc­tion decisions or undeveloped hooks are much better than cheaply calculated «perfection»; and an album with unmemorable songs, but a good bleeding heart, is closer to my liking than... an al­bum with unmemorable songs and no heart at all. Does the record hit the right spot? Does it make a good point? Well, take a look at that album cover — Satan putting his touch on the Pyramids, and since the Pyramids are a symbol of time (if not eternity), the point is that we are all doomed, but few people are more doomed than Greg Dulli. It's a good point that I'm willing to take, even if it is not nearly strong enough by itself to warrant a full-fledged thumbs up rating.

Afghan Whigs: Do To The Beast

AFGHAN WHIGS: DO TO THE BEAST (2014)

1) Parked Outside; 2) Metamoros; 3) It Kills; 4) Algiers; 5) Lost In The Woods; 6) The Lottery; 7) Can Rova; 8) Royal Cream; 9) I Am Fire; 10) These Sticks.

So how many people still remember Greg Dulli these days? Didn't the guy pass into predictable oblivion with the passing of the 1990s? Or wait, did he shoot himself? No, wait, that was Kurt. No, no, I think he ended up overdosing or something... oh no, silly me, that was Layne Staley. Then there used to be all these well-meaning, but impossibly boring people, you know, like Billy Corgan and Eddie Vedder and it seems they're still around, like a bunch of walking fossils from the smoky faraway era of self-loathing musical sludge, but does anyone still listen to them, other than the occasional out-of-luck rock critic? «Will review the latest Smashing Pumpkins album for food» and all that.

The point is, the Afghan Whigs were so Nineties that when, out of the blue, Greg Dulli reemer­ged after a fifteen-year gap with a brand new album, I'd almost be tempted to pre-laugh it off. It's not as if self-loathing and distorted depression have by now vanished off the surface of the earth (with the abundance of musical people today in search of an identity, practically nothing vanishes off the surface these days), but that whole attitude that the Whigs, in their heyday, shared with other grunge and «alt-rock» acts, seems to have largely melted away. So many demons were ex­orcised back then, it seems, that few were left for the 21st century.

And now, in strides Greg Dulli, back from the cold... and proceeds to exorcise yet another bunch, as if those fifteen years never frickin' happened. No, really, and I do mean it: Do To The Beast does not sound like a 2014 album — it sounds like a direct successor to Black Love and 1965, as if it were recorded the very next day, then refrigerated and stored for 500 years. Somehow, some­thing went wrong, the freon leaked out, and they simply had no choice but to release it to cus­tomers, or else it would have simply gone rotten on Dulli's ass.

This described scenario seems perfectly logical, yet, surprisingly, completely wrong: Do To The Beast is really a new album, prepared by Dulli, veteran bass player John Curley, and an expanded set of lead guitarists to replace Rick McCollum (who did play some gigs with the band around 2012, but later opted out). And you don't have to love it, but you gotta admire the fact that the re­cord ignores everything that happened ever since — and does it in a completely natural manner. Greg Dulli's musical character remains completely unaltered. He still sounds, essentially, as if he's doing cold turkey on a twenty-four-hour per day basis, and loving every moment of it.

"If time can incinerate what I was to you / Allow me to illustrate how the hand becomes the fuse". Throw in a heavy sludge riff pattern, sing this as if the fuse were stuck up your butt rather than placed in your hand, keep the tension sharp, nauseating, and unresolved for four and a half minu­tes, and you not only got yourself another minor «post-grunge» classic, but end up proving, right here and there, that you can produce thick, heavy, flaming soul of a far higher quality than any of them 21st century youngsters who really have no idea of what it really means to break down and cry. Don't be afraid to listen, Uncle Greg here is willing to teach you, though he probably does not expect you to learn anything.

The funky ʽMatamorosʼ opens with a bass groove not unlike the one that Andrew Lloyd Webber used almost half a century ago to open ʽHeaven On Their Mindsʼ — the same kind of distant-sounding, incoming and outgoing «bass probe» whose alarm signal gives a clear indication of «something's probably not quite right here». Soon enough, the song puts on a psychedelic cloak, with muffled falsetto harmonies, droning lead guitar riffs, even some treated strings for overall density; but this is fairly draggy, depressing psychedelia, more suitable for an opium den than an innocent love-in. It is also fabulously creative — possibly the album's best track, just for the sheer number of interesting little details taking place.

After these two songs, I was almost afraid that the natural course of events would be for me to conclude that Do To The Beast might be the best Afghan Whigs album, period. «Fortunately», as we go along, the songs generally become less and less memorable (also sort of a traditional trademark of Dulli's), so, on a song-by-song basis, it does not properly compare with Gentlemen or 1965. But there might not actually be any need to judge it on a song-by-song basis — it is set upon generating, preserving, and gradually dissipating a specific atmosphere, and if ʽParked Outsideʼ has already managed to get you by the balls, the sustained moodiness of songs like ʽAlgiersʼ, ʽLost In The Woodsʼ, and ʽCan Rovaʼ (dark acoustic folk!) will not let you go.

The real good news is that Dulli does not press the «distorted guitars issue» too heavily: few songs are as brutally crackling as ʽParkedʼ, and there are plenty of acoustic parts, slide phrases, piano flourishes, and even an occasional orchestrated part to keep up the mood. This might be a direct sequence of McCollum being out of the band, or perhaps it is a sign of old age, or a small conces­sion to the new age of music making, but whatever be the case, it works: Do To The Beast goes for depression, boredom, and beauty at the same time — and illustrates that on a grandiose scale in its last track, ʽThese Sticksʼ, which is repetitive, draggy, pessimistic, but still somehow rises to a fascinating crescendo, then gradually calms down — presumably, as the protagonist is bashing the last pieces of brain from his ex-lover, lying on the floor. "You thought me easy / You thought me prey / I've come to meet you / I've come to make you pay". If you think about it that way, it's pretty scary, too. Beautiful, depressing, boring, and scary — what a combo.

Who knows, maybe it is the best Afghan Whigs album, after all; at any rate, it deserves an un­questionable thumbs up — if, after a fifteen-year break, this guy is still capable of making you feel the same psychological discomfort and more, what else can you do? And note that the lyrics, as usual, are almost undecipherable, have nothing to do with the social situation or politics what­soever (most fall under the broad «me and you, dear» category, which you are then free to regard as a metaphor for God knows what) — but the lyrics really do not matter as much as the general «psychologism» of the whole thing. Suddenly, it looks like Greg Dulli is just the guy these days to give us a perfect demonstration of the real Beast Within, not some cheap post-modern fac­simile. At the very least, it's weird, and enough to recommend that the record be not forgotten.

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The Afghan Whigs: 1965

THE AFGHAN WHIGS: 1965 (1998)

1) Somethin' Hot; 2) Crazy; 3) Uptown Again; 4) Sweet Son Of A Bitch; 5) 66; 6) Citi Soleil; 7) John The Baptist; 8) The Slide Song; 9) Neglekted; 10) Omertà; 11) The Vampire Lanois.

At the time it was released, 1965 was not at all intended to serve as the band's swan song. On the contrary, it could have been thought of as a new beginning: after a three year break, the Whigs were picked up by one of the biggest players in the business — Columbia Records — and, as if to honor that event, Dulli and Co. made drastic changes to their sound, opening a new page in their musical history. As it turned out, the new book was to begin and end on the same page. But now this gives us a great excuse to finish it all off by saying — yes, at the end of their collective mu­sical journey the Whigs finally did turn in that one-of-a-kind record that justifies their entire ca­reer and sets up a special place for them in the alt-rock scene of the 1990s.

In my personal rating, 1965 is locked in a never-ending battle with Gentlemen as the Whigs' fi­nest hour. It represents a change, almost a transformation into a seriously different kind of band, which makes Gentlemen the more obvious choice to learn the essence of their usual sound. And in terms of memorable songs, both arguably contain comparable amounts of effort. But only on 1965 does Greg Dulli suddenly seem to wake up and actually start thinking about the sonic side of the business. And all of a sudden, there's an intrigue that never used to be there before.

As 'Somethin' Hot' bursts through your speakers, the first thing to notice is the syncopated «angu­lar» riff that brings to mind the best tracks on Gentlemen — an impressive, if not jaw-dropping, chord sequence instead of fully generic grunge/funk backgrounds on Black Love. By the time it gets to the chorus, it becomes something else: with a mix of grunge guitar, R'n'B drumming, soul-infused back­ground female vocals, and Dulli's "I wanna getcha high!" owing as much to white trash lust-as-love-as-lust sentiments as it does to Sly & The Family Stone, the Whigs have finally earned their reputation as genre-mergers.

Not only that, but Dulli's own personality also undergoes repairs. Instead of — always unsuc­cessfully — exorcising his de­mons, he has accepted them as an inevitable, but not particularly de­trimental evil. Jason Ankeny of the All-Music Guide has remarked that Dulli's "I got the devil in me, girl" in 'John The Baptist' is delivered almost as a pickup line, and I couldn't agree more. The song is wild and lustful, with one of three legs each in modern alt-rock, R'n'B, and 1970s glam, and not a single sign of self-hatred or desperate frustration in sight.

'John The Baptist' is one of the culminating moments, but the «epic» component is specially sa­ved by the band for the closing two tracks (really just one large song with a lengthy instrumental coda). 'Omertà' takes the appropriate time to unfurl, with funky bass, snowy organ, and unusually silk and sexy vocals from Dulli (did I mention yet that 1965 is the album to prove his worthiness as a singer?) leading into the storm of the chorus. But, although memories of "I got the devil" are still strong and Dulli's overdriven pleas of "surrender to me" are delivered like Voodoo spells, the­re is nothing particularly demonic or threatening to this storm. It's just that there are bright and shiny declarations of love, and then there are the dark and disturbed ones. 'Omertà' falls into the latter, much smaller and rarer, category.

Other than that, 1965 is just fun to listen to — for its out-of-nowhere Miles Davis-style trumpet solos, its moody background vocal arrangements, its stronger-than-usual emphasis on lyrical lead guitar lines. In a way, compared to all the rage that preceded it, it might be perceived as «shal­low» — after all, what good is an artistic statement if the artist does not bleed? That's the low art of comedy, not the high one of tragedy. But, on the other hand, I'll always take competently rea­lized comedy over inadequately puffed up tragedy. And for a guy who still has not blown his brains out or overdosed on a toilet seat, and, let us hope, has no plans of doing that in the nearest future, Dulli seems much more at home with the sentiments shown on 1965 than on any of those earlier records.

Then again, perhaps it is true that 1965, with its sonic evolution, is more of a Greg Dulli project than a bona fide Afghan Whigs record — and why it was the band's swan song, after all, upon which Dulli switched to a solo career (as well as a side one with The Twilight Singers, where he has far more commanding power than he had in his original band). But, to me, that would only mean that the classic Afghan Whigs period was just a first, far from the most important, step in Dulli's journey to rock adulthood. In any case, it hardly matters who gets the thumbs up — the band as a whole or the mastermind behind it.

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The Afghan Whigs: Black Love

THE AFGHAN WHIGS: BLACK LOVE (1996)

1) Crime Scene, Part One; 2) My Enemy; 3) Double Day; 4) Blame, Etc.; 5) Step Into The Light; 6) Going To Town; 7) Honky's Ladder; 8) Night By Candlelight; 9) Bulletproof; 10) Summer's Kiss; 11) Faded.

It looks like Greg Dulli eventually decided that Congregation and Gentlemen were too melodic, on the verge of conventionally commercial; hence, Black Love's retread into more familiar terri­tory — the more I listen to it, the less I can remember about the individual songs. But yeah, artis­tic integrity and coherence and all. There are people out there who honestly consider this to be The Afghan Whigs' masterpiece, and they have their point.

Of course, it is impossible to «just» go back. In 1996, unlike 1991, the Whigs were a critically acclaimed, moderately popular, wisened-up outfit with a style, an agenda, and years of touring and recording expertise behind them. Thus, Black Love is a well-planned, well-calculated record on which Dulli knows fairly well where he's going. Instead of a patchy and clumsy guitar sound, the band offers a steel-wheel disciplined wall of grunge/R'n'B, one that even dares to throw such instruments as clavinets and cellos into the mix; and, likewise, the lyrics have mor­phed from pure adolescent stream-of-consciousness into a sort of «rock poetry» professionally targeted at people with severe OCD problems.

Unfortunately, Black Love is selling to you that style and mood alone, and it is not that unique or even individualistic to be able to convert too many people. The Whigs have gotten bigger, louder, more brutal, more invasive, but Black Love does that at the total expense of musical ideas. Apart from one or two «ballads», not a single one of which has the instrumental subtlety of 'When We Two Parted' from the last record, the whole thing is just one big blast, and it all comes down to whether you feel like identifying with it or not. I don't. Too many blasts have gone by since the dawning of the rock age for me to want to identify with them just because they happen to be blas­ting. Gimme tunes, goddammit — particularly now, when, based on the experience of Gentlemen, I know for sure that this is not an utterly impossible request.

Ironically, it seems that even the blasting is not done all that well. The one song that does stand out a little, the one where the band really exerts itself to the utmost, is 'Bulletproof': the guitars become almost impossibly loud, even the piano accompaniment goes for overkill, and Dulli's screaming goes to 11. This is noticeable even against a dozen similar-sounding numbers — mea­ning that normally they still restrain themselves. So it's a mood-oriented record on which the mo­od has not been worked out to perfection.

The long epic 'Faded', coming in at the last moment, almost tries to patch things up by cutting the formless blob of noise dead in its tracks and supporting its anthemic pretensions with an excellent slide guitar part, just about the only musical bit on the entire album that I could find worthy. Turns out that Dulli is musically more meaningful when he is in an apologetic mood ("You can believe in me, baby, can I believe in you?") than when he is in one of his fits. Unfortunately, we get to realize it way too late, when there is no time already to switch from the thumbs down posi­tion. Yes, Black Love is meaningful and sincere, but then, so are we all. And some of us, I'm not afraid to say, suffer quite comparably to Greg Dulli — and some might even suffer in more interesting ways for the general public.

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The Afghan Whigs: Gentlemen

THE AFGHAN WHIGS: GENTLEMEN (1993)

1) If I Were Going; 2) Gentlemen; 3) Be Sweet; 4) Debonair; 5) When We Two Parted; 6) Fountain And Fairfax; 7) What Jail Is Like; 8) My Curse; 9) Now You Know; 10) I Keep Coming Back; 11) Brother Woodrow/Closing Pray­er.

Let an average band hang around long enough for the stars to form a lucky configuration, and soo­ner or later it will justify its existence, finally plopping out that near-masterpiece that, accor­ding to the occasional benevolent critic, it «always had in it», but was «biding its time». For The Afghan Whigs, a group grand on intentions but petty on realisations, Gentlemen was their finest hour. In all honesty, it is a record that must have come about by accident. But come about it did, and ensured them their proper place in the 1990s.

There is nothing particularly new or striking here conceptually; the difference is simply in that, somehow, the band pulled their act together and, for once, released a collection of musically in­teresting pieces. The general taste and smell of the band — that was well-known by 1993, and had no intention of changing. Loud, rough, screechy, confessional, obscure, not easily accessible: for an average Joe in the world of pop-art (like me, for instance), it was certainly easier to em­pathize with Kurt Cobain than Greg Dulli, who always seemed to leave the most important and direct things unexpressed. As in, try to guess the meaning of the album sleeve this time — is this a cheap-thrill-inviting allusion to underage sex, or just an allegory concerning the hard problem of stratifying gender roles in our modern world?

No matter. What is important is that some of the songs are good. Maybe it was a condition of the band's being picked up by a major label (Elektra Records), in the wake of industry bosses' reali­zation of how much all grunge-related people could sell — that the band's got great sound and all, but they also need to learn to write, if you know what I mean. Whatever it was, it worked.

The band tries out some new, interesting approaches, such as a tricky «syncopated grunge» style on the title track, or a moody, echoey, almost «artsy» atmosphere on 'When We Two Parted'. The band comes up with a couple memorable riff parts, such as the hard rock droning on 'Now You Know' (reminds of Hawkwind) and the psychedelic-mystical melody of 'Be Sweet'. And the band allows for sonic diversions — such as inviting Marcy Mays of Scrawl to take over the lead vocals on 'My Curse' (a real nice change from Dulli, who wears out the eardrums fairly quick), or clo­sing the record with yet another instrumental drone that the Velvet Underground would certainly appreciate — with guest star Happy Chichester contributing a spaced-out Mellotron part, no less.

All of this combined makes Gentlemen into a record worth revisiting, and, perhaps, even worth trying to understand and «assimilate». Not because of any insights it may give one into the world of male/female relationship — at the turn of the century, a mediocre band like the Whigs can har­dly expect to publish any important breakthroughs in that sphere, no, and I am not at all interested in quoting their lyrics, or admiring the subtle ways in which they turn the sentimental ballad for­mula on its head. But when I listen to the band really burning it up on 'Now You Know' or 'Debo­nair', I feel as if am that close to «getting it» — «it» being the admirable way in which the band leader's frustration is finally converted into a sound that's got direction and purpose in addition to crunch and volume. It is tough to explain, but then I'm not alone in this — pretty sure that the boy sitting on the bed out there is having a much tougher time than me in figuring what's going on, for some reason. So, a curious, unexplainable thumbs up it is.

P.S. But is it just me, or is 'My Curse', with its main melody and acoustic guitar/piano arrange­ment, subconsciously influenced by Clapton's acoustic reworking of 'Layla' on Unplugged (chro­nologically, quite apt, since the latter came out one year earlier)? Because that is sure a bizarre way for the subconscious to behave itself.

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The Afghan Whigs: Congregation

THE AFGHAN WHIGS: CONGREGATION (1992)

1) Her Against Me; 2) I'm Her Slave; 3) Turn On The Water; 4) Conjure Me; 5) Kiss The Floor; 6) Congregation; 7) This Is My Confession; 8) Dedicate It; 9) The Temple; 10) Let Me Lie To You; 11) Tonight; 12) Miles Iz Dead.

This is the record that supposedly initiates the Whigs' «classic» period, critically acclaimed for the just-right ratio of grunge to R'n'B to troubled singer-songwriter content. True, it is a clear step up from the previous album, but the way I see it, the Whigs' creative growth was almost painful­ly slow — and furthermore, do not even begin to try and compare Congregation, in terms of inten­sity and poisonous flames, to same era records from Nirvana or Alice In Chains, because any such comparison will immediately strip the album of any good reasons it might have to exist.

Having now fully asserted his role as the band's major creative force, Greg Dulli still has not lear­ned to write interesting songs; there are many different riff parts on here, but not a single one I'd like to take to heaven or hell with me. Except 'The Temple', of course, but that's because 'The Temple' is a cover of a track from Jesus Christ Superstar — the album's most surprising move, open to various interpretations. It is a rather lame cover, but the question, of course, is not how good or bad it is, but whatever made Dulli put it there...

...which, logically, leads to the next question: what the hell is Congregation actually about? The album is clearly conceptual. It has a naked black woman hugging a naked white baby on the co­ver (which some interpret as a reflection of Dulli's subconscious frustration at not being born black, and others as a brief synopsis of the racial history of humanity). It has a pretentious fourty second male-female introduction that begins with such lines as "Eat my imagination, taste my imaginary friend". Throughout, it features stream-of-consciousness lyrics that keep switching from male-female to individual-society relationships, with «male» and «individual» predictably featured in a more positive light than «female» and «society».

But none of the points are ever made explicit. Instead, there is simply a general feeling of something wrong going on in an envi­ronment where everything should be supposed to be going right. Does that have something to do with the fact that a black woman is holding a white child? What, exactly, is the problem here? Why is Greg Dulli singing 'The Temple' to us? Is it just beca­use he loved that melody so much that he'd waited ten or more years of his life to put it on his own record, or is there a deeper conceptual dig to it?

Considering that the album's best song, a depressed jangly dirge to Miles Davis, was thrown on as an afterthought, after one of Dulli's friends, setting up a party, left the message "Miles is dead. Don't forget the alcohol" on Greg's answering machine — there are no particular deep conceptual digs on most of the songs. In that sense, Congregation works much better if you just take it as one mid-sized blob of whirlwinding guitars and grumbly scream-singing that seems like the ideal average of a kick-ass attack and a tired, languid fit of depression.

It all comes perfectly together on the album's second best song, 'Tonight', which sees Dulli perform his sociophysiological functions ("follow me down to the bushes, dear, no one will know, we'll disappear") with such utter disgust ("our private little trip to hell") as if he were thinking of himself as one of Plato's immaculate ideas, for some stupid reason, trapped inside an atrocious human body. If there is one little moment for which I am bound to remember Congregation, it is the fact I have never heard no one, ever before, say the clichéd phrase "Can I walk you home to­night?" with such visible contempt for both its object and subject.

Other than those last two songs, though, and very occasional blips of interest on the rest of the record (well, want it or not, you don't get to hear Andrew Lloyd Webber covers on alt-rock artists' albums every other day), Congregation still does not manage to justify the Whigs' descent on our planet. You do have to admit, though, that the combination of black and white flesh looks quite classy against a red background. Too bad the music is nowhere near that colorful.

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