All the allegations might be true if not for Black Love. In 1996, to critical indifference and mostly unfavorable comparisons to its richly praised predecessor, Gentlemen, Greg Dulli & Co. unleashed one of the most brutal and emotionally gnarled documents of a failed relationship ever committed to tape. Black Love probes the depths of the male psyche — vengeance, remorse, self-loathing — and emerges with the stinking detritus of soured romance.

The man who only one album prior proudly proclaimed he had a “dick for a brain” seems to have undergone a transplant. Black Love finds our near-caricature of male id shattered and torn, imploring his partner to explain what went wrong. (“The drug of your smile has gone and left me alone … I need it, sweet baby, please. Won’t you answer the phone? … I have to ask. I need to know. Was it ever love?”) But Dulli refrains from hanging his lover on the cross. There are scattered references to his own lies and infidelities, his seemingly irresistible indulgences. Dulli is plagued by indecision, as he wonders whether he should come clean or “remain concealed.” Ultimately, Black Love addresses a much deeper issue than Gentlemen ever dared to contemplate: can a perpetually unfaithful man ever truly be in love — is what he feels the sadness that accompanies the loss of someone he cares about or just the sharp pangs of guilt that stem from hurting someone else?

Musically, the Whigs deliver the most potent and stingingly mournful statement of their career. Wisely eschewing the lighter-wavers that bogged down the latter half of Gentlemen, the Whigs match Dulli’s anguished, conflicted lyric sheet with their own stormy turbulence. Rick McCollum, whose soulful purr is sorely missed on the Twilight Singers’ albums, dispenses a seemingly endless array of tangled guitar riffs. John Curley and Paul Buchignani meanwhile restore the sort of biting, bracing rhythm section that the Whigs had shunned in their quest to become undisputed Caucasian kings of Motown. Dulli himself deserves immense credit as well for his role as producer. His skillful incorporation of sound effects, including the screeching locomotive that opens and closes the record, underscores the dark, yearning narrative. More importantly, his decision to allow McCollum’s searing guitar work to take front and center ensures that the album doesn’t sacrifice immediacy even as Dulli slowly rakes himself over the coals.

Black Love’s central question and Dulli’s own emotional discord, not surprisingly, aren’t wholly resolved — although by the album’s second half Dulli is noticeably less ambivalent. On “Bulletproof”, there’s a breakthrough of sorts, as Dulli puts aside the anger, regret, and lust: “Love I can’t hide / But it’s been easier since I said it now.” Indeed, the admission seems to set the tone for the album’s remainder. Further distancing himself from the brash antagonism of Gentlemen, Dulli turns his torment inward, his pain no longer manifesting itself in the uncontrollable urge to lash out or exact revenge. There’s a deep, abiding sadness that carries through the final three tracks, reaching a fever pitch on “Faded”. Dulli transforms himself into a classic balladeer, taking to the piano as he begs the lord to “lift him out of the night.” Here, the Whigs’ fascination with soul serves them well. Conspicuously lacking in the band’s trademark condensed rage, Dulli’s urgent pleas are carried up toward the heavens by a church organ and McCollum’s dramatic crescendos. It’s Dulli’s spiritual hymn of sorts, his prayer for God to wash away his sins and give him solace.

Ultimately, in keeping with the thematic thrust of “Faded”, Black Love is as much about redemption, making peace with love, as it is about the pain of doomed relationships or lingering regrets. And in that sense, Black Love provides some sense of closure even though Dulli remains battered and beaten in the messy aftermath. As the guitars slowly die away and the train leaves the station, one gets the feeling that Dulli is still waiting on an epiphany. But beneath the sadness is a glimmer of hope. He hasn’t come to terms with his emotions quite yet, but Dulli, somewhere over the course of the album, has transformed into a sympathetic character — demonstrating a capacity to change, daring to be human and learn from his poisonous relationship. Perhaps he’s not the shell of a man his actions would suggest.

The Afghan Whigs
Black Love

By Mark Yarm

Toward the beginning of “Crime Scene Part One,” the opening track on the Afghan Whigs’s fifth album, frontman Greg Dulli asks, “Do you think I’m beautiful? / Or do you think I’m evil?” The answer is both, and therein lies the tension that fuels the Cincinnati, Ohio, band’s soulful rock. The Whigs create beauty while lamenting lost love on songs like the sentimental-sounding “Summer’s Kiss,” but most of Black Love explores the darker side of romance.

The charming and dapper Dulli spent much of the previous four albums portraying creeps, liars, and sexual predators. On the best of those albums, 1994′s brilliant Gentlemen, Dulli showed just how hellish love can be, even comparing a relationship to a prison on “What Jail Is Like.” On Black Love, which is only slightly less effective, Dulli has been sprung – and he goes on a crime spree of sorts. “If what they say is true,” the gangster of love sings on the vitriolic “My Enemy” [music: 280Kbytes .aiff], “They say I killed the brother / To fall in love with u.” Black Love is full of such love-inspired menace.

The centerpiece of the album is “Going to Town” [music: 258Kbytes .aiff], in which Dulli and his lover jump in a car, drive into town, and burn down everything. As they speed off into the countryside, Dulli tells his partner in crime, “When you say / Now we got hell to pay / Don’t worry baby, that’s okay / I know the boss.” Listening to him sing, it’s easy to imagine the charming arsonist running his hand through her hair while slamming his foot down on the accelerator.

All this crime doesn’t pay, it turns out. On the elegiac closing track, “Faded,” Dulli pleads “Lord, lift me out of the night / Come on, look down / And see the mess I’m in tonight.” It’s a beautiful mess, no doubt.

Nude as the News

RiYL: Dinosaur Jr., Mark Lanegan, Scrawl
Afghan Whigs vocalist Greg Dulli sums up himself and his relationship with the public on “Crime Scene Part One,” the opener of the band’s sixth album, Black Love: “Do you think I’m beautiful? / Do you think I’m evil?” he asks over the atmospheric music.

To a degree, Dulli has been alternative rock’s No. 1 bad boy. Unlike Eddie Vedder or Billy Corgan, whose lyrics struggle to overcome the destruction and despair around them, Dulli revels in it.

But then there’s the music. The Whigs, formed in Cincinnati in 1988, have made themselves stand-outs in the alternative rock universe by having the kahunas to mix punk and R&B with a straight face. With 1993′s Gentlemen, Dulli made the defining statement on failed love. On Black Love, he seems like he’s releasing all the pent-up frustration of the last album.

The rest of the band is up for the ride, sounding as tight as they ever have. While the Whigs are firmly rooted in alternative rock, they blend it with ’60s and ’70s R&B, not to imitate older artists, but to communicate the band’s true roots. On “Going To Town,” the group affixes a dirge-like guitar to a “Superstition”-era Stevie Wonder electric organ, as Dulli sings about taking his lover into town to burn it down.

The band has also learned how to write a decent pop hook, as shown on the album’s first single, “Honky’s Ladder.” And “Bulletproof” features the band’s most melodic writing to date, complete with vocal harmonies. On many of the more radio-friendly numbers here, the Whigs trade in the jarring tendencies of their previous albums for more accessible tones and arrangements.

But in many ways, the band has pushed itself on Black Love. The stunningly simple ballad “Night By Candlelight” is driven by elegant strings. And who would’ve thought The Who was an influence on the Whigs? All doubts are put to rest by the manic “Summer’s Kiss.” Maximum R&B indeed.

In the end, Dulli and the rest of the Afghan Whigs are both beautiful and evil. It’s the dynamic between the two that makes Black Love worthwhile.

However, it’s hard not to admire Dulli for the shamelessness of his efforts. Even before he became an indie sex-god, Dulli didn t pay any mind to his status as a virtual nobody, draping himself with celebrity arrogance well before anyone cared enough to consider him an asshole. That’s hardly abnormal behavior for any artist. But like the pre-Live Through This Courtney Love, Dulli early on exhibited such a taste for attention (upon the release of Gentlemen, Dulli attributed his insolence to genius) that his eventual popularity seemed inevitable.

With Black Love, Dulli fixes to reinvent himself as a soul man. A longtime fan of R&B (on a ’92 Sub Pop EP, the Whigs cover Al Green and the Supremes), Dulli borrows soul music’s dramatic scope to make the Whigs something greater than another group of angry white punks; even while the Superfly grooves in “Bulletproof” and “Blame Etc.” fail to mask the Whigs’ rock roots, the mangy hybrid is a sound few other white funksters have explored. And if Black Love reveals anything new about Dulli’s self-destructive MO, it’s that he intends to chalk up enough personal misery to be able to earn the soul man’s crown without having to answer to the fact that he’s a white guy with less than perfect pitch. On Love’s first single, “Honky’s Ladder,” Dulli states his case in no uncertain terms when he asks, “How high does a brother have to climb to touch the lights?”

Dulli’s questions is most easily answered by the fact that the only things Black Love has in common with ’70s soul are ornamental–a hip-shaking organ groove here, a fidgety wah-wah fill there. But in a time when self-important whiners are in control of much of pop music’s character, it’s refreshing to hear someone emote with a sense of greater purpose.

by Brett Anderson (mail@washcp.com)

THE AFGHAN WHIGS
Black Love (Elektra) ***

-Ana Vargas

The Afghan Whigs may be closer to alternative rock than anything else, but don’t mistake Greg Dulli for just another angry whiner. In fact, he doesn’t whine-he just wants action. More often than not, action means satisfaction of Dulli’s gleefully masochistic desires.

Dulli previously explored the remnants of a failed relationship on 1993′s Gentlemen. With lyrics like “Tonight I go to hell for what I’ve done to you,” he seemed to be exorcising his own evils. Black Love, the Afghan Whigs’ fourth album, takes another step into the darker side of Dulli’s soul. Giving up all hope of deliverance, he revels in his own depravity.

Black Love is an album with a story. It opens with “Crime Scene, Part One,” in which a soft, brooding voice tells us that a man is on his way to kill his enemies; he is then accused of a murder in “My Enemy.” Dulli muses on the ability of friends to turn into enemies, thrusting out his anger among the ripping sounds of a steel guitar. “They say I killed a brother to fall in love with you,” he sarcastically says. For the narrator, there are more compelling reasons for murder, but he is trapped. “No matter what I tried to do, I stood accused,” Dulli’s hoarse, gut-wrenched voice screams in “Blame, Etc.” He is a man raging against the system with all the power betrayal can produce. What’s he going to do about it? Well, he decides to go burn down a town. “I’ll get the car, you get the match and gasoline,” Dulli tells his accomplice in “Going To Town.” Later, when his partner says they’ve got hell to pay, Dulli accepts the consequences with his usual twisted rapture: “Don’t worry, baby, that’s OK / I know the boss.” The near-dementia of his proposals are complemented by the strong organ and cello instrumentals that carry the listener away on a tidal wave of euphoria.

The thick, sludgy sound of the Whigs is still in top form. Bassist John Curley and organist Harold Chichester create the deep textures of the songs, with supplemental strings combined with steel guitar and clarinet pushing the album beyond the bounds of alternative angst. Dulli’s lyrics capture his sense of madness and abandon without relying on frustration alone to drive their intensity. Instead, he alternates between the pleading search for some feeling of certainty and a self-assured knowledge of the way things are.

In “Night by Candlelight” Dulli’s voice slithers its way into your head, asking you to repeat after him, “Am I vain? Have I shame?” Softly, hypnotically, he wrestles with his need for redemption, drawing us into the net of his thoughts. “Summer’s Kiss,” an almost jubilant hard song, leads us in the opposite direction. The narrator invites a woman to come sit in the cool grass on a summer day, but simultaneously realizes that everything will fade. “The dream is not a dream / I wake with it inside of me. / Alone, I swear.” His alienation pushes us up against the idea of nothingness. But Dulli is once again able to transcend it through self-inspection, action, and the twisted, exhilarating drive of his music.

In fact, Dulli and Corgan are oddly similar, albeit with curious differences. Like Corgan, Dulli ventures beyond the standard rock format, coloring Black Love with a sonic palette that includes cellos, electric pianos, soulful falsettos (by guest vocalist Doug Falsetti!), and “Shaft”-like ’70s wah-wah pedals (both Dulli and Corgan revere the grandiose aspects of ’70s pop, almost perversely). They both use personal vengeance as their primary muse and mission, although Dulli’s vendettas are aimed at targets more mature than Corgan’s adolescent persecutors. Both artists possess a primal, piercing vocal yowl (Dulli’s is more physically imposing and threatening), and both are ambitious enough to bracket their albums with grand overtures. Dulli uses an ominous organ motif that sets the dark mood, then leads it out unsettingly.

But unlike Corgan, Dulli’s milieu is murky, a grimy underworld of drug dealers, murderers, arsonists, deceivers, and moral failures, himself among the latter. And in almost every song, he enacts revenge against these deviants. Yet for all its anger, there’s an element of pathos here, mostly in the awareness of one’s own weaknesses. “Tonight, tonight, I say good-bye/To everyone who loves me/Stick it to my enemies,” Dulli sings in the opening “Crime Scene Part One.” But his killers question things: “Do you think I’m beautiful?/Or do you think I’m evil?” the same murderer wonders. And in “Going To Town,” an arsonist tells his lover that he knows he’s going to hell: “Don’t worry, baby, that’s okay/I know the boss.”

Meanwhile, searing, soaring guitar lines pull each song out of the dirt by its roots, and little musical tricks matter–sharp listeners will even catch Dulli copping the melody of Olivia Newton-John’s “Have You Never Been Mellow” on the bridge of the foreboding “Blame, Etc.,” as Dulli, perhaps unconsciously, indulges his love for cheesy ’70s pop. Funny, though: it all quilts together like a warped Tarantino film.

Black Love is aptly named: it’s as twisted, sarcastic, bitter and depraved as the first word implies, yet as vulnerable, pained and devoted to its mission and musical power as the second idealizes. That’s a combination that’s tough to swallow, but also tough to beat.

– John Bitzer

As anyone who has seen the band can tell you (HFStival 1994), the Whigs are not to be missed when they’re in your neck of the woods. The Afghan Whigs tour begins in late March with another fine Ohio band called Howlin’ Maggie.

Poor bugger. Once again, Greg Dulli has been unlucky in love. Previous Whigs albums suggested their helmsman’s dating life is twisted enough to give the Royals a run for their riches. But the state of his affairs has worsened in the three years since the poisoned Dear John of Gentlemen. Considerably. The title says it all, really, and “Bulletproof” warns that “this time we go a little lower”.

Dulli opens proceedings with an invocation to meet him at “the scene of the crime” (“Crime Scene Part One”). Terry and June this is not. What it is though, is the Whigs – and Dulli in particular – on peak form. Although recording for Sub Pop gave them a certain profile, all but the cloth-eared could see there was more to these Cincinnati smoothies than just “grunge.”

Uptown Avondale’s Motown covers and the bittersweet Gentlemen staked their claim as rock’s darkest bar band. Dulli, eschewing plaid for natty suits, poked the ashes of cracked relationships, while the Whigs hammered out an R&B-inflected scuzz rock of often brutal strength. Black Love is their fifth, finest and also their bleakest album, like a rock’n'roll cousin to those noire crime novels by Jim Thompson. You know the plot – bloke is ensnared by cold-hearted beauty who makes off with the cash, leaving him with a smoking gun and the cops at the door. Judging by Black Love, all the women in Dulli’s life are like Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. And he’s the chump who gets shafted.
All of which makes for a lousy Valentine’s Day, but a topsmart record. “Blame” distills all that fear and loathing into five glorious minutes. An epic of doomed, obsessive love, it broadens the Whigs’ musical scope by interlocking mournful organ with that trademark serrated guitar attack. Dulli comes clean that his love has him “in chains” before embarking on a sing along chorus of “Blame/Deny/Betray/Divide”. On “Going To Town,” even a night out with the missus turns into Bonnie And Clyde, with Dulli screaming “I’ll get the car/You get the match and gasoline” over climbing strings.

The Whigs display a surer musical touch in general, one that often lightens the gloom. “Step Into The Light” is almost country, with sublime snatches of slide flaring in the distance, while the strings and mandolin of “Night By Candlelight” weigh perfectly against its unremittingly tortured lyric. Like Al Pacino in Heat, Dulli would probably say he needs that angst to keep him sharp. And there’s something curiously macho about a song like “Honky’s Ladder,” which marries romantic obsession with a chorus of “got you where i want you, motherfucker”.
You wonder what a Whigs album’d be like if Dulli ever met The Right Girl, but, in the meantime, his recent failures make irresistible listening. All that wallowing in someone else’s sadness gives Black Love a breath-taking redemptive quality.
It’s short on catchy singles, but appearing in Uma Thurman’s next film, Beautiful Girls, with a cover of Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love,” should make the Whigs the stars they ought to be. And, anyway, if Dulli ever did meet Miss Perfect, you know for sure he’d be looking over her shoulder for the revolver.

Sound bite: “Out of the black and into the blacker.”

As with Gentlemen, the way such conventions inform instead of determine chewier pieces like “Double Day” or “Blame, Etc.” is what really distinguishes the music. And the ballads (“Step Into the Light,” “Night by Candlelight”) are, almost incredibly, the deliberations of a rock guy who knows his L.T.D. and Gap Band slow-jams. That Dulli’s voice has the texture of old mink and the rhythmic reliability of a metronome clinches the deal. The net result is rock music as unforgiving as a car hood, as elegant as a cuff link.

Infiltrating the band’s trademark sound – a mixture of scissored rhythms and guitars that sway with the force of a ship on choppy waters – are the soulful ghosts of Otis, Marvin, and Sam. But the term “black” runs deeper than just an influence or even an album title. It’s at the album’s thematic heart. There is the constant reminder of lost love, diluted passion and unwanted possession. It’s a gripping scenario of romance that seduces a lover with the deadly embrace of a thousand Medusas. Dulli’s strangled vocal range does the trick, espousing the frustration held within one’s heart ’til it bursts with ugliness. For those who got on board with 1993′s Gentlemen, Black Love is the artistic progression that should bear witness to the Whigs’ greatness.

John Patrick Gatta