On Second Thought

For better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That’s why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

On their final album 1965, the Afghan Whigs reached a plane of slithering Midwestern booze rock that blends self-parody, desperation, glitz, and genuine sadness all at the same time. Greg Dulli treats the album like his own personal At the Sands: heartbreak and a gritty, sloppy need for affection pours through the speakers in four minute pop nuggets. This is the white-boy harmony of crotch, diary, and tear-duct that oatmeal bands (Matchbox Twenty, Maroon 5, countless other chimps) have made a career diluting.

Let’s take a moment to give guitarist Rick McCollum and drummer Steve Earle some credit, though. On “Crazy,” the album’s early stunner McCollum matches every dip in Dulli’s voice while Earle drives the metered blood around with snares and dirty cymbal splashes. Standing next to Dulli’s blue-eyed bluesman isn’t easy, especially one who’d record a solemn, echoing sex session (“Sweet Son of a Bitch”), before the centerpiece and nasty-confection single “66.” But the Whigs wisely let Dulli hog the spotlight and narrative focus and instead give the music its backbone: easy guitar strums, whining pedal effects, and ageless rock/blues drum patterns.

“66” sounds disturbingly gaudy at first. The song appears to ease into genre conventions—quiet, hesitant singing, echoing guitar pedals, and a faint could-be-Pro-Tool’d choir in the background—only to be shattered by Dulli’s preening, lewd yet weepy hook: “come on little rabbit / Show me where you’ve got it / ‘Cause I know you’ve got to have it.” We think he’s about to topple some big emotional wall, but suddenly the cockiest man in the room almost looks like the saddest. The music waits for him to change his mind, but he’s still leading with his dick. It’s almost Prince-y profane, but far too pig-headed and masculine. It’s a song for the man who fucked everyone he met in his apartment building and now no one will give him the time of day. Desperation overtakes all reason and emotion.

The whole album is filled with collapses: a chain of bass drum kicks that gives way to an aching guitar line, a string section that falls beneath Dulli’s defeated hook of “you cry too much baby / I’m tired of the sound,” and a lurching determination that runs alongside them. Album closer “The Vampire Lanois” smears a buckshot range of horns over the flustered electric guitar as the gothic gospel choir exhales a deep breath. A second after latching onto the instantaneous asshole sentiment “you can fuck my body / Just don’t fuck my mind” of “Neglekted,” the pleading kicks in: “remember my name!”

Like an unrepentant fallen angel, Dulli trots out failure after failure. Dank R&B-infected rock struts and frets its last hour in the Afghan Whigs shell. Years after its germination date, and countless moons since anyone but the already converted praised it, the tone of the band on 1965 finally strikes the pop heartstring.

Confessions are a big topic today, so I’ll throw in mine at the end: 1965 was my first Afghan Whigs album. Working backward through their discs (from the stark naked siren calls of 1965 to the (comparative) lyrical restraint and distant guitar work of Gentlemen), anyone can hear the layers of dust, regret and filth shellacked onto the band and Dulli’s voice.

I once heard poetry referred to as “what happens after the epic ends.” If you’re willing to accept that definition, then 1965 is the foul sonnet that gets tacked onto the rambling, invisible epic of the Afghan Whigs. Watch the phoenix struggle under its own ash. Hear the band give a fitful last push at relevance. Hear a man mine his diary one last time.

Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli is the grunge superstar that never was. If US rock prized rugged sensuality over angst-ridden throat-shredding, their seventh album 1965 (named after the year Dulli was born) would have been widely recognised as a masterpiece. The band had always been vocal about their soul influences (their Uptown Avondale EP comprised soul covers), but this time they really began to come through in their own music. Displaying a rampant strain of carnality, Somethin’ Hot is a captivating opener. Uptown Again broods and smoulders with devilish intent, featuring vocals that could make Klaus Kinski blush. Yet, for all the sultry come-ons, Dulli comes across as less of a thrusting cock-rocker and simply someone who knows what makes the world go round. **** Steve Lowe

-Joe Gross

http://archive.salon.com/ent/music/reviews/1998/12/09review2.html

Out: October 20
File Under: Lothario garage-soul
Right If You Like: Early Prince, the Stones’ Some Girls, Pearl Jam’s Vs.

What makes the Whigs’ latest effort so engaging�in fact, what makes all their records so engaging�is the presence and personality of Dulli. Like Jon Spencer, Dulli is always in danger of turning his “white love of black music” into a farce, but here, on very well-written songs like the rocking “John the Baptist” and “Uptown Again,” he forgoes the over-the-top dramatics in favor of more sincere and genuine approach. Sure there’s still a bit of brass to him, like on the scorching opener to “Somethin’ Hot,” but his restrained style just makes him entirely more seductive.

1965 is as cohesive an album as you’ll find from the Afghan Whigs and should be consumed in the same manner in which it was produced: in long and languid inhalations, preferably with mint julep in hand.
� Joseph Monish Patel

Allstar 11/5 – “During a recent interview, Dulli said he’d like to see the Whigs become the “biggest band in the world.” Although they still have a long way to go to reach that zenith, at the Bowery Ballroom they played like they were already at the top. The result was one hell of an enjoyable rock concert, complete with all the trimmings.”

USA Today – ran a rave CD review of THE AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by Edna Gunderson 11/3: �Heartland rock and vintage Motwon smoothness combine in sultry, exhilerating music.�

Esquire – ran rave CD review of THE AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by David Eggers in November: �Post-grunge alternarockers� sixth album is their best in years. Dark, soulful, soaring — with backup singers, �70′s soundtrack horns, wa-wa guitar and lots of “Baby” this and “Baby” that.

Request — ran rave CD review of the AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by Bill Synder in November issue: �Throughout, the Whigs play with the kind of restraint and precision that separates the great from the good, taking the frustrated rage of Nirvana and matching it with all the erotic groove of Marvin Gaye.�

Madamoiselle — ran great CD review of THE AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by Nina Malkin in November issue: �Afghan Whigs have never been so in touch with their inner love balladeers. Their usual noisy guitars make room for horns and wanton female vocals, all lubricating the libido of front man Greg Dulli…What a hoot!�

Alternative Press — ran great CD review of THE AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by Rob Cherry in November issue: �…Dulli and the Whigs have fashioned a lean album of libidinous groove expertyly punctuated with horns, strings and R&B back-up chicks. Templates for this album might have been the Stones� Black And Blue, Prince�s Black Album or Marvin Gaye�s Sexual Healing. And though the Whigs assimilated those influences long ago, here they finally seem comfortable enough to tip toe over the top….�

Jane — ran positive CD review of THE AFGHAN WHIGS’ 1965 by Christina Kelly in November: �This one, another melding of soul and punk rock, does not disappoint…Buy the reocrd and go see them whenever you get the chance!�

Elsewhere, though, we find a band up to their otherwise-extraordinary old tricks, whipping up quite the grand musical tension, where dense guitar chords and other bits of ambience, shot-gun-loaded bass lines and perpetual motion rhythms serve as a canvas for Dulli’s melodramas.

“The Slide Song” is a somber slow-burn, with steadied swells of accelerated tempo and fat slide guitar. The album-closing “Omerta” is strung-out rock splendor with a searing coda. And “Crazy,” the collection’s hook-laden highlight, features typically engaging Dulli (“therapy… pharmacy… crazy,” he sings of his lost-soul character).

These are the songs and the moments that make you glad, despite everything, that the Whigs are still around.

– Neal Weiss