Afghan Whigs

Far be it from us to treat grunge as some kind of protected geographical designation, but the simple fact of hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio would be enough to strike the Afghan Whigs from the notorious “Seattle scene”, into which they were lumped for convenience's sake after their debut “Big Top Halloween” (1988) and the sophomore effort “Up In It” (1990, their first for Sub Pop). Then again, back in those days, predicting how far and in which directions the granite-hard sound of Greg Dulli's band would expand, and just how many influences it would swallow whole, would have been a tall order. Guessing them all would have simply been impossible.

Then, in 1992, came “Congregation”, revelatory from its stunning cover alone. A voluptuous Black woman lies on a red sheet, cradling a white infant in her arms. Both are naked, and the contact between their skin seals the unbreakable bond between white pop music and Black music, casting the latter as the ancestor of the former.

That theory is put into practice across eleven blistering tracks (twelve, counting the ghost track “Miles Iz Ded”) that blend grunge — white alternative rock, in other words — with the angular rhythms of funk, R&B, and above all the aching, sensual tones of soul, delivered through Dulli's supple, self-destructive voice, into one homogeneous, punishing whole. In effect, this is grunge coming of age, moving on from blind youthful rage into ambiguous thoughts, uncontrollable sexual urges and tangled emotions. Venturing into this thicket of sex, betrayal, arguments, jealousy and abandonment via the pathways offered by Black music. Yet the balance is absolute, with every ingredient held together, inseparable, while Dulli curses and torments himself. He thrashes about until he draws blood, hurling himself and his screams against a steel cage of guilt, painful confessions, libido and sweat.

“Gentlemen” (Elektra) is cut from the same cloth, but improves on the already excellent “Congregation” in terms of songwriting — tormented, candid, explicit, explosive and visceral, with Dulli in staggering form here — and in the variety of its arrangements. Rick McCollum's guitar is versatile and cutting; searing when he unleashes stark riffs (“Gentlemen”, “Debonair”, “Now You Know”), spellbinding when he ventures into psychedelic soul solos (“When We Two Parted”, with its guitars that weep and push forward). John Curley and Steve Earle form a rhythmic juggernaut that need not shy away from comparisons with more celebrated pairings of the era, like Shepherd-Cameron (Soundgarden) or Ament-Abbruzzese (Pearl Jam).

On “Gentlemen”, the band pushed the formula already tried out on “Congregation” to its fullest expression, to its most precious and painful fruits. Eleven songs that differ, in personality and aesthetic alike, in music as much as in their brutal lyrics, from any other record of the early '90s. Representing a definitive statement of the period rather than the seed of a scene or a movement.

Launched after an opening track (“If I Were Going”) that sets off a palpable tension, “Gentlemen” is driven by an almost geometric guitar riff, dry and whip-cracking in rhythm, as Dulli all but introduces himself, demanding attention as he hollers like a preacher and lets us know the confession has begun. McCollum's wah-wah-drenched solo completes the picture, turning this title track into a grunge classic and one of the most beloved songs among Afghan Whigs fans.

Ladies, let me tell you about myself

I got a dick for a brain

And my brain is gonna sell my ass to you

(from “Be Sweet”)

The controversial yet brilliant cover of “Gentlemen” is a remake of a famous photograph by Nan Goldin, an artist associated with the Boston collective Five Of Boston: “Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City”, from 1983, part of the collection “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”. In what has been described as the image of a relationship in decline, the photographer is bathed in a yellowish beam of light, watching from bed as her partner Brian smokes a cigarette bare-chested, most likely after having sex. All well and good, except that in the Whigs' reimagining, Nan and Brian become a little girl and a little boy. Unsettling and provocative, the choice points to just how deeply the ambiguity of love is woven into human nature — how it accompanies us from birth. Love itself is the constant protagonist, the deus ex machina driving the riffs and the torrential confessions of “Gentlemen”, a record that explores the feeling in every song, in all its forms. The most radiant and redemptive ones, but above all the darkest. Never holding back on rawness, at times veering into outright pornography.

Predictably, the controversy sparked by the cover only increased the exposure of the band and its fourth album, which would never match the sales figures of contemporary grunge bestsellers, but would earn the band an everlasting cult status.

It was "Debonair" in particular (thanks to fairly heavy rotation on MTV) that finally put the band firmly in the spotlight. It's a piece of funk-grunge propped up by a rock-solid rhythm section and driven by an irresistible handclap, over which wild-hearted Dulli pours out the torments of his conscience, stretching his voice until it cracks.

It's a breaking point the singer pushes even further on the jumpy "Fountain And Fairfax", where amid the flow of molten guitars he almost seems to tear his own throat open as he screams and demands: "Let me drink, let me tie off/ I'm really slobbering now/ Let it stink, let it dry up/ It's an impossible, how?". Frantically pounded piano and a voluptuous cello send the track careening away from its initial grunge coordinates toward a more arty, psychedelic version of the genre.

This near-chamber-music approach returns in the instrumental suite that closes the album, "Brother Woodrow". A stirring showcase of imagination and versatility in the arrangements, brimming with romanticism, where strings and a bubbling piano dance with the reverb of a sandpaper-rough electric guitar.

Piano drives the theatrical "What Jail Is Like", a blustery, dramatic track in which guitar feedback blows through inexorably, veiling the strings in a devastating layering job; while with its sticky, damp-soul cadence, "Be Sweet" is anything but sweet — instead, it's a soaked plea of self-pity addressed to an unmoved lover.

It's yet another proof of a pregnant songwriting style, capable of generating instant identification. But what it confronts you with isn't your better feelings — it's your weaknesses, your contradictions, your lies, your subterfuges. It drags out the worst in you, lays it in front of you, and forces you into a deadly reckoning. It reveals and transforms you, like only the most powerful music can, but it does so by attacking from behind. It leaves you lifeless, exposed, curled up in the fetal position in some dark alley of the conscience. Left to lick your wounds, worn out from fighting yourself.

"Temptation comes not from hell but from above" is the self-indulgent conclusion of an entire lyrical journey that Dulli arrives at in the lyrics of "My Curse". A song, however, that the author entrusts to the powerful voice of Marcy Mays of Scrawl (a Columbus, Ohio band very close to the Whigs), who wraps it in velvety, soul-inflected vocal runs amid the vibrant folk sketches played by the rest of the group.

The impossibly soft "I Keep Coming Back" is a cover of the 70s soul classic by Tyrone Davis. A song about the impossibility of separating from a lover and a relationship that has already turned toxic. Dependent as one is on the little good that remains — even if it's just physical pleasure, mere crumbs — Dulli lends it even more depravity and murky flavor: "I wanna leave you/But I just can't leave you/ I keep coming back for a little more of your love/ I wanna go away but honey, I just can't stay/ I keep coming back for a little more of your love". It's the closing of the circle, the definitive embrace between soul and grunge. A perfect balance we find again amid the contrasts of the breakneck "Now You Know", where McCollum fires off heavy riffs like there's no tomorrow, while Dulli uses the piano accompaniment to adorn his ravenous howls like a rough-edged soulman.

Let me in I'm cold

(from "Gentlemen")

Without Steve Earle, who left the Afghan Whigs after the tour following "Gentlemen", the band would never find a worthy replacement and would press on, on records like "Black Love" (1996, Elektra) and "1965" (1998, Columbia), with a progressive shift of their sound toward soul. There would be no shortage of great songs, but the magic, the fierce perfection of the "Congregation"/"Gentlemen" one-two punch, would remain just a memory — both before the band's 2001 breakup and after the 2011 reunion, which was, in any case, closer in spirit to the band's finest work.

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24/05/2020