Afghan Whigs - The inventors of soul-grunge

The Afghan Whigs were one of the most significant alternative bands of the '90s. The stylistic evolution of their sound followed a path that led them from their initial hardcore fury to the velvety rock of their later period, brushing up, at various points, against grunge, soul and blues. Cincinnati, the year of grace 1986: Rick McCollum (guitar) and Steven Earle (drums) complete the band's lineup, coalescing around the original core made up of John Curley (bass) and Greg Dulli, a shouter as angry as he is passionate, furious and romantic at once, often within the same song. The Afghan Whigs' sound is a melting pot of influences, following a genealogical line that starts with Neil Young, passes through the Replacements and Husker Du, and arrives at Dinosaur Jr, Squirrel Bait and Soul Asylum: poetry, aggression, rage and sadness blend seamlessly into a sonic framework whose originality stems from the presence of (at least initially) barely perceptible soul undertones. Dulli's lyrics are intimate, perhaps autobiographical: the private side, in fact, wins out over the public one; in this sense, he's closer to Mould than to Westerberg. Dulli would have every right to be the spokesman for Generation X, but his lyrics don't deal with the problems of small-town American teenagers (as Westerberg's do, for instance), nor do they bear the rebellious, self-destructive stigmata of Cobain-esque poetics, capable of ensnaring the imagination of an entire generation; Dulli is a more cultured musician, but perhaps just slightly less visceral.

Big Top Halloween is the debut. The album has an aggressive, impetuous sound, but one that's even more acidic and metallic than that of Squirrel Bait and Dinosaur Jr. Up in It effectively closes out the band's first period. The tracks are still raw and fast, but Dulli's songwriting is starting to emerge in songs like “You My Flower”, the archetype of the Afghan Whigs-style romantic ballad, with the sound dominated by the singer's heartfelt, passionate voice. “Up In It” is essentially a collection of hardcore tracks, where grunge begins to peek through and where the soul imprint is even more pronounced. The fury hasn't subsided though, as acidic rock'n'roll numbers like “Retarded” and “White Trash Party” prove. “Hated” is one of the Afghan Whigs' masterpieces, an acidic, Dinosaur Jr-style grunge track, as is “In My Town”, which seems to anticipate the sound of Green Mind, while “Son Of The South” feeds on the blues the way only the Cramps knew how to. The downbeat “I Know Your Little Secret” is performed with mesmerizing intensity; the vocals, first sweet, then angry, then desperate, show just how eclectic a singer Dulli is, as well as how passionate.

Congregation (1991) throws everyone off balance. The band's primal fury has noticeably eased, making way for more sophisticated arrangements and greater stylistic variety; grunge, psychedelia and hints of soul are skillfully blended by a vastly more mature Greg Dulli, by now one of the most inspired songwriters of the '90s. “Let Me Lie To You” is a classy psychedelic ballad steeped in decadent romanticism: “all alone, all alone no one to play with/your eyes are all swollen from crying/again feeling sick you open it and discover your lover between the legs of another and he’s loving it”; the relationship between the sexes, at times idyllic and at times perverse, is one of the constant themes running through Dulli's lyrics. His characters are hardened sinners with no chance of redemption, as told in “I’m Her Slave”, a visceral (auto)biography of a man enslaved by drugs. The driving riffs of “Kiss The Floor” and “Turn On The Water”, where the wah-wah guitar effect traces a sly funk groove, reveal the band's commercial potential.
Congregation is one of grunge's hidden gems, showcasing a smart band able to ride the trend of the moment while still bringing meaningful innovation to a genre that was starting to spawn parasitic bands devoted to the calligraphic rehashing of the Seattle sound.

Being a bit harsh, one could argue that Gentlemen is essentially a copy of the previous album, better arranged and more varied, but fundamentally similar in sound and themes. Gentlemen is, however, the Afghan Whigs' finest album, simply because these are among the best songs the band ever wrote. Dulli manages to build a perfectly balanced sonic framework, where every element interacts with the others without overpowering them, instead helping to give the whole thing a striking dynamic. The result is a richer sound, at times sumptuous but never redundant. Grunge is too tight a suit for a band that wriggles between soul-psychedelic touches, funky rhythms and powerful hard rock blasts.
Gentlemen is essentially a concept album about love and its many facets, reaching peaks of pitiful self-pity in the magnificent “When We Two Parted”: “every night I spent in that bed with you facing the wall/ if I could have only once heard you scream, to feel you were alive instead of watching you abandoning yourself”. The oblique funk of “Debonair” shows Dulli as a possessed preacher wrestling with his own conscience: “tonight I go to hell for what I’ve done to you/ this is ain’t about regret/ it’s when I tell the truth”. In “What Jail Is Like”, a sweet piano-driven melody builds an atmosphere of apparent calm that is shattered by Dulli's furious shout; it's the peak of the singer's theatrical abilities. While “Marcy Mays (Scrawl)” adds melancholy to the delightful “My Curse”, the album closes by still delivering emotion with the instrumental “Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer”.

The Afghan Whigs are a band of real worth, and with this album they proved it, bringing to completion an artistic journey that used grunge as a pretext to express a more varied sound, indebted as much to Black music as to mid-'80s indie rock. Art grunge lives here (and in the vicinity of Satchel).
So much grace is squandered on Black Love (with new drummer Paul Buchignami), an incredibly mediocre record that wearily repeats the formula of previous albums, but with an even more polished production. Black Love presents a band steeped in its own clichés, where soul-grunge has become a mannerism rather than a creative thrill. One after another come “My Enemy”, “Double Day”, “Blame”, anonymous, spineless funky-soul-rock'n'roll. It seems the band is more interested in flaunting the pseudo-originality of its own style than in trying to evolve its sound. “Honky’s Ladder” sounds like the grunge of a band imitating the Afghan Whigs, while “Bulletprof” slips by without a flicker. These are songs lacking any real quality, without particularly memorable melodies, neither aggressive nor passionate, saved only by some decent arrangements.
Amid so much mediocrity, Dulli still manages to craft three or four tracks that wouldn't look out of place on a hypothetical Afghan Whigs greatest hits: the powerful and passionate “Summer’ Kiss”, in which Dulli recovers some of the grit of his best days, “Step Into The Light”, a fragile ballad with romantic-fatalist overtones, and the gorgeous “Night By The Candlelight”, sung in the warm, enveloping voice of Shawn Smith — none of which, however, are enough to lift the overall quality of the record.

Like a phoenix, the Afghan Whigs rise from their own ashes.
1965 (with yet another new drummer, Michael Horrigan) suffers from the same ailment as many alternative productions of that period: being already out of step with a musical landscape that was turning its attention elsewhere. It's a shame, because this is a refined and sensual pop-soul album, superbly arranged, sophisticated but never academic. “Somethin’ Hot” unfolds in a masterfully interlocking dynamic, bringing together Dulli's warm voice, female backing vocals and piano solos; it's restrained music, especially compared to the self-pitying impulses of Gentlemen and the overt fatalism of Black Love, but no less passionate for it. If there's one thing the Afghan Whigs have few rivals at, it's writing sincere, at times perverse confessions in the form of warm soul-psychedelic ballads, like “The Slide Song” or the slow, hypnotic “Crazy”. “City Soleil” consists of a whirlwind of perfectly calculated arrangements dressing up an enchanting pop structure. “John The Baptist” digs into the roots of the most traditional Black music, between gospel choirs, horn flourishes and funky rhythms; it's as far removed as they've ever gotten from their hardcore beginnings. Hats off.
The rise of new, all too often fleeting if not downright fake musical trends has thrown Dulli's band into oblivion, though they deserve a small place in the history of rock — certainly more than much of the overrated (new) new wave and rock'n'roll junk of that era.

A full 16 years later, the Afghan Whigs return with a new album, Do To The Beast, released on Sub Pop just like old times. The result is solid, considering how things had gone (drummer Steve Earle's absence, guitarist Rick McCollum jumping ship along the way), and it feels like the natural conclusion of a process of stylistic reconciliation that, in its earlier stages, also took in the debut of Gutter Twins and the latest chapter in the discography of Twilight Singers, perhaps the closest of all, in the end, to the Whigs' typical sound.
What strikes you first is Greg's voice, impressively weakened yet stubborn, fighting the instruments for centre stage. Despite the frontman's forfeit, the guitars don't sound all that far removed from what they've always been. “Matamoros” doubles down thanks to the most tried-and-tested of jagged, stinging landscapes, with the frontman acting, not without success, as an ageing, devilish master of ceremonies.
Further on, the Afghan Whigs reappear restrained and rapturous, in a track (“Can Rova”) that seems mostly intent on echoing the wonder-filled stillness of kindred spirit and friend Mark Lanegan, favouring, even at its climax, a low-key approach made largely of whispers. But there's no room for self-indulgence here, and the band quickly returns to the classic territory of “Congregation” and “Gentlemen”, stamped with that limping vocal style amid a sumptuous sonic chaos. The Americans confirm they're not just an energetic, incisive outfit but an extremely precise and elegant one too. The songs on “Do To The Beast” (the title apparently courtesy of Manuel Agnelli) remain highly contrasted pages, with the frontman moving easily through the half-light between emptiness and fullness, tension and release, as in tracks (“Lost In The Woods”, “It Kills”) that recall the remarkable, if underrated, and now distant predecessor, 1965.
While there are faint echoes of the early Twilight Singers in the more composed soul of “I Am Fire”, the real chills come from the superb “Algiers”, where even today's worn-down Dulli manages to slip back into the rough noir sensuality of the golden years without missing a beat. The band (bolstered by guest stars such as Alain Johannes, Joseph Arthur, Petra Haden, and Raconteur Patrick Keeler) carefully avoids any expressive revolution and faithfully serves up its house specialities, careful not to hold back or skimp on the pedal pushing. It's good to find the Whigs so true to form, even if it means suffering alongside them through the odd rougher patch. Their pyrrhic potential, that phenomenal restlessness, hasn't faded with the passing seasons. Nor has McCollum's unmistakable, enveloping à-la-The Edge guitar work — still the band's added value — been betrayed. The sound (which on “The Lottery” edges back towards the magic of “Black Love”) proves full, warm and dazzling, and the frontman's very human limits, left unmuted, remain a detail that's ultimately not insurmountable.

The Afghan Whigs keep writing beautiful, black-hearted songs that bleed just the right amount, and perform them superbly. The abrasive fatalism of a finale that burns like a blazing twilight is especially superb, with the frontman truly giving his all.
Like it or not, their sublime despair has come back to claw at us. And it still does. A solid album released after fifteen years of dormancy, the chemistry of the golden years recovered at the first opportunity and ready to reveal itself as the key ingredient of a triumphant tour, especially fruitful in terms of new songs despite a few significant defections. The fruits of that renewed enthusiasm are now being served up as Sub Pop releases the eighth full-length from Greg Dulli's crew. A lovely esoteric cover, scattered shadowy hints, an ambiguous title alluding to the unmistakable nature of excess: In Spades is a strange record, a work devoted to the crumbling of memory, to the chaotic blurring of recollection. But it's also a record that, once again, delights in mixing erotic drive with premonitions of death, specifically tied to the terrible illness that snuffed out, before it even began, the hopes of the dying Dave Rosser (former guitarist for Twilight Singers and Gutter Twins). Opened by an unexpectedly minimalist chamber piece (“Birdland”), the collection was written and produced by the frontman — aided in the studio by Blind Melon guitarist Christopher Thorn and by Mike Napolitano, husband of Ani DiFranco — between New Orleans, Memphis, Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, leading a team that also includes veteran bassist John Curley, Raconteurs drummer Patrick Keeler, and Petra Haden and Rick Nelson of the Polyphonic Spree on strings.

The mechanical rhythms of “Arabian Heights” don't undermine the band's galloping, almost leonine authenticity, even as they impose a perhaps overly coercive pulse on the other details on offer. In line with this new course, the bandleader's voice makes no attempt to hide its currently halting state, which is hardly a surprise — Do To The Beast already made that clear — but coming to terms with this reality once again means a fresh, difficult reckoning for anyone who fell madly for the Cincinnati band's classics and finds themselves thrown off once more. Of course, when Dulli refrains from pushing too hard and glides on the velvet of his unmistakable noir-tinged rock, as in the magnificent single “Demon In Profile” rather than the on-the-nose “I Got Lost”, the band still has every chance to enchant thanks to its old elegant character. Other passages, however messy and evidently prone to an imbalance of forces (“Toy Automatic”), turn out to be no less captivating, sparing themselves any artificial tinkering and letting Greg's sensuous vocals be swallowed up by electric flourishes and reverb.
The Afghan Whigs haven't disowned their vicious musical nature, the fundamentally physical weight of a sound that, as ever, is superbly polished, and you'd bet that with a less forcibly thinned-out vocal performance they could still speak with real authority within an alternative scene that, frankly, isn't exactly at its peak right now. You have to make do with what's on offer, knowing that class, at least, doesn't just evaporate overnight. Without venturing into flashier or more eccentric territory, the Ohio boys stick with the languid-yet-cantankerous code of their mature records, setting aside the imbalances and mannerist temptations that had begun to creep in here and there — on 1965, for instance. The delivery still leans towards the spirited, the surface appears subtly refreshed (without any structural upheaval), and the songwriting, above all, remains the most solid guarantee on hand.

If there's no sign of any special studio trickery used as a disguise, it's all the more true that no deception can be found here either. The trademark twin guitars and Dulli's vaguely devilish swagger on “Light As A Feather”, the toxic horns that seal the woozy “The Spell”, work purely as tokens spent to keep loyal fans on side — a perspective under which In Spades works at its very best. Dulli does his part, at times working through compensation, wearing a mask even more emphatic than the ones we remembered from him. The humanity suggested by his finiteness, his flawed nature, the fragility of a performance that is nonetheless so stubborn, represent the main point of interest in this pleasant if untimely outing, coming straight from the smoky past of a band that simply refuses to throw in the towel.

2022: the passage of time has turned Greg Dulli's hair grey but hasn't dented his voice. On the third album since the band's comeback (2013, “Do To The Beast”), the Cincinnati musician — also behind The Twilight Singers and Gutter Twins — once again calls on his Afghan Whigs (the only other surviving original member being bassist John Curley) for a genuine record in which the many souls of his music come alive and coexist. The three singles that preceded How Do You Burn? gave no clear indication of a specific stylistic or emotional direction for the record, but that was precisely why they highlighted its tonal and thematic diversity. Alongside a warmongering “I'll Make You See God”, which revives the tense grunge attack of “Congregation”, we got a deliciously soulful “The Getaway”, open-hearted, with string arrangements and candlelight. Rounding out Dulli's range of registers was a contrite “A Line Of Shots”, a source of palpable, inexhaustible tension that never quite explodes. Greg and the renewed Whigs move within their comfort zone — broad and multifaceted as it is — but they do so with class and with the kind of songwriting quality and ideas that suit them.

The rest of How Do You Burn? flows along, enriched by the musicians Dulli introduced in behind-the-scenes posts on social media: from multi-instrumentalist Van Hunt to co-producer and now de facto additional guitarist Christopher Thorn. Then there's the painful, final presence of his lifelong companion Mark Lanegan, on backing vocals in “The Getaway” and “Jyja”, and also the one who suggested the album's title, as well as Marcy Mays. The latter, the absolute star of one of the high points of that masterpiece “Gentleman” (namely “My Curse”), keeps Mr. Dulli company on the splendid “Domino and Jimmy”, amid elegant piano chimes and languid slide-guitar. Meanwhile, Dulli dispenses vitality and energy (“A Line Of Shots”) alongside more pained, delicate, perfectly arranged moments (“Concealer”, and “Please, Baby, Please”, with its delightfully Motown-tinged accents). Underneath it all runs a spectral, murky and saturated undercurrent, much like the cover photo, running through the strings of “The Getaway” and on into the highly synthetic voodoo-blues stride of “Jyja”.

Closed out by the searing solo of “In Flames”, How Do You Burn? shows the good health of one of American alternative rock's emblematic projects, led by one of its most charismatic frontmen. Of course, like the other two post-reunion albums, How Do You Burn? doesn't replicate — and can't replicate — the aching alchemy with which the Whigs combined grunge and soul back in the '90s, but it still delivers a solid dose of great songs and institutional class.

Greg Dulli

Setting aside “Amber Headlights” (released in 2005), which Greg Dulli abandoned and never finished due to the pain caused by the death of his friend Ted Demme, Random Desire is, to all intents and purposes, the first solo album by the Afghan Whigs frontman. Given how prolific Greg Dulli is, and how many side projects he's involved in (Twilight Singers, Blackbeat Band, Gutter Twins), it's strange to realize that a debut as a singer-songwriter in his own name took so long to arrive.
It's a “debut” defined by freedom, one that absorbs Dulli's many-sided past, laying out numerous traces of it — grunge debris, soul fumes — while adding fresh suggestions of its own.
The only truly rock excursions with guitars front and centre, whether electric (“Pantomima”) or acoustic (“Sempre”, the heart-and-dust big ballad “Marry Me”), all come at the start; the album then veers towards less predictable arrangements, at least by Dulli's standards, built around piano (“Slow Pan”, “Black Moon”, a tasty treat for anyone who loves Dulli's voice at its most scratchy) or strings (the aching “It Falls Apart”). The most intriguing moment is, in fact, the one where Dulli abandons his comfort zone entirely and croons over a backing that hybridizes Western and Balkan sounds (the gorgeous “A Ghost”). Equally unusual and successful is the pairing of drum machine and horns on the graceful closing section of “Lockless”.
“Pantomima” aside — the standout guitar single clearly placed to win over and reassure the Afghan Whigs fandom — one gets the impression that the alternative rock tracks are the weakest links here (“Sempre”, “The Tide”, “Scorpio”). Perhaps Dulli should leave songs of that sort to the capable hands of his bandmates (who, in recent years, seem to have become entirely malleable to his songwriting needs) and focus, in his future solo work, on the freedom of arrangement that marks the best songs on Random Desire.
A choice like that would give fresh, unpredictable new clothes to the tormented, conflicting feelings that Dulli remains one of the finest interpreters of his generation at telling.

Soft Control is the Afghan Whigs' tenth album, the fourth since the band's return to action in 2014. As suggested by the singles that preceded it, the new phase of the Cincinnati band seems to be retracing the arc of its first one. If “Do To The Beast” marked a return centred on rock and sharper guitars, “In Spades” and “How Do You Burn?” wrapped themselves increasingly in a cloak of soul suggestions, just as happened in the '90s with the albums that followed “Gentlemen”.
Soft Control is the Whigs' new and definitive arrival at a Black-music dimension — clearly filtered, as ever, through rock formations and structures.
An electric, tense opening to the album, courtesy of “Jungle Roux” and “House Of I”, shows Dulli and Curley, the only original Whigs still running the project, building gripping, direct songs that know how to stir things up with their cutting riffs and charm with danceable soul backing vocals. Sure, everything is glossier and less visceral than in the '90s, but then again forty years have passed since the band's formation, and it's only natural that their music now sounds more domesticated.
“Duvateen” slows the album down, favouring piano and strings over guitars in a ballad built to dispel any doubt about good old Greg's vocal health, still elastic, sensual and scratchy.
While “My Lover” rides a loping bassline and rusty guitar slashes, “The Deepest Part Of The Darkest Shadow” takes us into a new cloud of soul, built on keyboards and tenor sax — its closing section strongly recalls the atmosphere of the wonderful “Faded”, the closing track of “Black Love”.
After such a gripping first half of the album, unfortunately the same cannot be said for the second, in which Dulli repeats the new modus operandi without finding the ideas or sparks to really win you over. The guitars, moreover, seem to arrive drained of charge on “Mariah Luster”, “77” and “Lose Talk”, settling Soft Control into a tone of perpetual ballad.
All things considered, though, it's a good record, one that makes the Afghan Whigs sound like the classic act they now are. The fire, ambiguity and sexual tension of their original phase have by now cooled, but Dulli, now sixty, has method, and new themes (starting precisely with the acceptance of maturity) to navigate a new era and, surely, to go on to write better albums than this one.

Contributions by Stefano Ferreri (“Do To The Beast”, “In Spades”), Michele Corrado (“Random Desire”, “Soft Control”) and Alessio Belli (“How Do You Burn?”)

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