Most of the Afghan Whigs’ albums were such cinematic affairs — with beginnings, middles and ends — that it’s hard to imagine the band’s songs all scrambled up. Luckily, Greg Dulli and Co. manage to pull it off on this belated send-off, which stitches together 16 of their best tunes, plus a pair of songs newly recorded by the band’s final lineup.

The Whigs always were at their best mining the dark alleys of the soul, wedding the sounds of Motown and Seattle for a unique sonic imprint both grim and passionate. Unbreakable succeeds by not simply collecting the band’s singles, but, rather, presenting a series of songs that best fit that theme, from the self-loathing of “Be Sweet,” off of 1993’s gut-wrenching Gentlemen, to a creepy, downtempo take on the Supremes’ “Come See About Me.”

New songs “I’m a Soldier” and “Magazine,” as almost always is the case with these collections, are fine and fitting, yet don’t stand up to the band’s best. The Whigs really get it right, though, by closing the disc with their most ambitious pairing: “Crime Scene Part One” and “Faded,” the epic, movie-like bookends of 1996’s Black Love.

And with that, it’s a wrap. (Matt Sebastian, Camera Staff Writer) 

Frontman Greg Dulli played up his role as smooth motherfucker with such gusto on tracks like “Debonair” and the “Be Sweet” (with its infamous “I got a dick for a brain” line) that casual listeners figured they had him pegged as yet another arrogant post-punk rocker with a big mouth and an overactive libido. Lyrics such as “Do you think I’m beautiful/Or do you think I’m evil?” on the devastating “Crime Scene Part One” from 1996’s Black Love encapsulated some people’s frustration with Dulli. But his affinity for soul music and his surprising tenderness — encapsulated on the cover of The Supremes’ “Come See About Me,” darker and sadder than the original by far — reveals a different character, one significantly deeper than expected.

The songs swagger with confidence; the numbers from the band’s last record, 1998’s upbeat 1965, still feel like a hazy, absinthe-fueled party, but much of the earlier material seethes with real menace. Dulli implores his lover “Don’t you let me breathe” on Congregation’s “Turn On The Water,” while the tracks from Black Love, the band’s dark masterpiece, are both claustrophobic and cathartic; even the catchy “Going To Town” has Dulli arming his companion with a “match and gasoline,” the goals being “burn it down, turn around, and get your stroll on, baby.” The epic “Faded,” guitarist Rick McCollum’s finest moment, closes the record on an impassioned-yet-world-weary note. “Do you believe in me baby?” Dulli asks, hardly the braggart from the grungy, Sub Pop album-opener “Retarded,” “Can I believe in you?”

Unbreakable is the first — and, with the band’s plethora of great live cuts, covers and B-sides, hopefully not the last — Whigs compilation and, while the awkward tracklisting leaves something to be desired at times (1965’s “John The Baptist” sticks out like a sore thumb — and where are the singles “You My Flower,” “Honky’s Ladder” or the band’s signature set-closer, “Miles Iz Ded”?), this delivers the goods. For fans, it’s a way to reevaluate old favorites in a new context and hear two recently-recorded tracks, the gripping “I’m A Soldier” and the trip-hoppy “Magazine,” which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the first Twilight Singers record. For the uninitiated, it’s a treasure trove, with would-be classic singles and songs that feel like missed opportunities on the part of the Whigs’ three labels; how Columbia missed turning the buoyant, sexy “66″ into the club hit of the late ’90s is beyond me.

Mark Cappelletty

As leader of the terrifically lost, vastly unloved Afghan Whigs, singer-songwriter Greg Dulli mixed the howling self-hate of the grunge movement with the heart-sleeved hope of arena rockers. The Cincinnati-born band should have been bigger, but its emotionally disheveled leader expected this frustrated fate. There’s a bipolar beauty to Dulli’s songs, with soft moments often turning into vengeful screams. On the jarring “Be Sweet”, his pillow talk turns punk ugly… then pretty… then ugly again, as the singer just can’t get a handle on love.

Sean Daly

Greg Dulli didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve when leading the Afghan Whigs. He nailed it to his forearm with a railroad spike and then walked down the street, shoving it in stranger’s faces. He didn’t whine about his nail-driven heart, either; he was pissed off, and made sure you heard — and felt — every bloody detail.

Cincinnati’s Afghan Whigs are considered by many one of the finest bands of the 1990s, and also one that never quite got its due. Dulli, John Curley, Rick McCollum and Steve Earle unleashed a decade’s worth of dark rock ‘n’ roll splashed with even darker soul, all of it informed by Dulli’s torrential anger and disappointment at himself and the world.

What the Afghan Whigs did exceedingly well was create an atmosphere that was pure Whigs and purely distinctive. The band recorded for Seattle’s Sub-Pop Records alongside Nirvana and made music that was equally powerful, with hooks as big as any that Kurt Cobain crafted. But the Whigs never made the leap to commercial success. Maybe Dulli was ultimately too scary for the masses.

“Unbreakable: A Retrospective 1990-2006″ is the first Whigs compilation and it’s a solid, if brief, reminder of their legacy. Two unreleased songs, recorded specifically for this collection, manage to hang with the classics, but it’s the vintage material that thrills, from the blistering “Retarded” to the epic “Crime Scene Part One.” This was Afghan Whigs at their conflicted best, cathartic without the emotional cleansing, uplifting even as Dulli dragged you down.

How does one begin reviewing a compilation of a band that was so dear to one’s heart? That is the question as I sit with Unbreakable: A Retrospective of The Afghan Whigs playing on the headphones. I know what’s around every corner, I even anticipated correctly the two new recordings that Greg Dulli and gang recorded for this Rhino comp (“I’m A Soldier” and “Magazine”), which both are nice additions to the Whigs catalog. While there is no compilation that could replace the perfect Gentlemen album Unbreakable does a great job on tying as much as one can into one 18 track album.

Apparently Dulli and bassist John Curley handpicked the songs and sequenced them as well. When Afghan albums are so meticulously sequenced this must have been a hard thing to separate tracks like “What Jail Is Like”, “Be Sweet” and “Gentlemen” from their best album, Gentlemen. The album also takes a number of tracks from Black Love and 1965 to fill out the track listing. “Turn On The Water” made the cut from Congregation and the album opener, “Retarded” from Up In It.

So, even though it seems obvious, Unbreakable is a good place for those who have never heard this very influential 1990s band that was so sadly overlooked. Don’t miss out on Dulli’s equally impressive Twilight Singers.

Nonetheless, this career-spanning compilation boasts a shrewd mix of tunes that ought to appeal to the generation of rock fans (I’m talking about those of you who made the move from grunge to Britpop) that missed out on the Whigs first time around.

The creative core of the group, Greg Dulli (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick McCollum (lead guitar) and John Curley (bass) were ever-present over the course of the six albums recorded between 1988 and 1998 (the first independently-released album Big Top Halloween has been excluded from this collection).

They’ve even re-formed for two new tracks (I’m a Soldier and Magazine) which unfortunately aren’t among the best songs here.

Generally, though, the whole Afghan Whigs tale has been compiled and presented reasonably in this little nugget. Sure, there are a handful of omissions like early favourite White Trash Party, but it’s hard to dispute that most of the group’s definitive material is here.

The songs range from early brash, near-grunge recordings like Retarded to altogether sleeker animals in the vein of Debonair and Gentleman and culminate in the highly melodic layered products (the brassy, occasionally funky stuff like Crazy and John the Baptist) of what is surely the best and (frustratingly) final Whigs album 1965.

Aside from those two excellent tracks, other personal favourites include the bleak adult tale Let Me Lie to You (“discover your lover between the legs of another”) and the rockier Turn on the Water. Dulli’s preoccupation with the politics of sex-drenched relationships can get a little wearisome and I still can’t shake the feeling that the Whigs could have, and should have, done more than they did, but their story is still worth listening to.

– MARTIN VENGADESAN

The Afghan Whigs might be described as the “contenders” of 1990s rock. They had some hits in the grunge era, but their style was a little too idiosyncratic for them to rise to the top of the charts when every band with a gritty guitar solo was doing that.

The Whigs still boast a fervent fan base – and six years after their breakup in 2001, a new collection, Unbreakable (A Retrospective 1990-2006) cherry-picks the best from five of their albums and an EP. The Whigs combined an ear for a hook with lyrics that dig in with an ingratiating tingle. They started out on iconic grunge label Sub Pop and later moved to Elektra Records and then Columbia. Despite some terrific songs, they never quite seemed to be in the right place at the right time for mass appeal. You can feel them surfing through styles in this non-chronological collection of 18 tracks, which offers a fine survey of the Whigs at their peak.

God knows the Whigs deserved a big hit more than ’90s rockers like Bush or Candlebox – perhaps frontman Greg Dulli’s fervent stew of psycho-sexual angst was a bit too fiery for the masses. He’s got a knack for marrying jangling power chords with some marvelously blunt, unsentimental lyrics – “She wants love / I still wanna f––k,” he croons in “Be Sweet.” Dulli comes across as a lovelorn, tortured everyman – but unlike a lot of the flannel-clad depression cases of the era, he had the musical chops to make tunes that were more than grinding self-indulgence.

The two new tracks here, “I’m A Soldier” and the older unreleased song “Magazine,” don’t quite qualify as essential, but they’re nice to have here. The gems are in the tunes that made the Whigs’ reputation, though. “Debonair” ascended to the upper reaches of modern rock charts with creepily snarling lines about “Tonight I go to hell / for what I’ve done to you.” There’s a willingness to try anything – the molten thrash of “Retarded,” the snide, screaming frenzy of “Gentleman,” the dreamy reverie of “Let Me Lie To You,” the pumped-up horns blaring in “John The Baptist.” The band even managed a smart deconstruction of The Supremes in their cover of “Come See About Me.”

Dulli’s stunning vocals, equal parts hard rock and grittily soulful, anchor the band’s sound, while Rick McCollum’s fluid guitar lines tear classic riffs into the tunes. The Afghan Whigs excelled at making music that was menacing, mysterious and melodic. They couldn’t quite be pegged down – and maybe that’s why they never quite “made it.”

The die-hards will have heard all this before, but Unbreakable is really aimed at once again trying to break the Whigs to the world at large. If anything, their reputation has grown since the breakup, and Unbreakable is here to show what the fuss was all about – sturdy, hook-filled and strangely subversive rock that deserves a fresh listen.

Unbreakable’s track list looks much like a latter-day Afghan Whigs set list, albeit one without valiant attempts at covering the Rolling Stones or Stevie Wonder. Plenty enough is provided to ensure satisfaction, but like a Whigs live set, several songs are missing in action, lost to time constraints — and, of course, since there are no visuals, you’re not going to get the odd juxtaposition of pent-up Dulli-ites moshing to ballads involving devilishly delivered lines like “‘Cause she wants love, and I still wanna f*ck,” not to mention on-stage antics suited for a DVD titled Ex-Altar Boys Gone Wild. What’s just as deserving of placement on this disc? A wide assortment of anthology-worthy material that, as effectively as the content included, contains a wicked mixture of desire, lust, lechery, hate, and regret. Among the missing and worthy are “You My Flower,” “Band of Gold,” “My Enemy,” “Honky’s Ladder,” “Somethin’ Hot,” and all the unincluded songs from Congregation and Gentlemen; any 80 random minutes from Up in It through 1965 are likely to pull up a set that’s every bit as pleasurable as this one, despite the wrongness that comes with breaking up two front-to-back works of genius. Two inclusions were recorded by a briefly reunited 1965-era lineup: “I’m a Soldier,” despite its uncharacteristic subject matter, sounds characteristically sleazy, while “Magazine” slinks and pulses along without reaching true lift-off. The non-chronological sequencing works to the band’s advantage, covering up a gradual development of overambitiousness and increased reliance on trite come-ons. (“Come on and taste me/Come on and take me” is no “If I stepped it off, walked outside your trance/Crawled inside your mind and got my hand inside your pants.”) Hopefully Rhino — or Rhino’s Handmade division — will eventually make a box containing all the albums, (mostly excellent) EP and single tracks, and (often graphically extreme) videos. This band’s catalog is filled with blackhearted soul carrying a swashbuckling swagger that no other band — including Dulli’s Twilight Singers — could possibly touch, and all of it should be left to circulate as much as possible.

While there are two new numbers here, most of Unbreakable relies on albums such as Up in It, released in 1990, to drive home the point that Dulli and company, despite the obvious comparisons to Westerberg and his replacements, had plenty of smarts with songs such as the gorgeous rocker “Retarded”, which kicks this album off. A buzz-saw track that has Dulli wailing during the chorus, “Retarded” shows just one side of this multi-faceted outfit. Meanwhile, a more melodic side of The Afghan Whigs comes during “Crazy”, which has a soulful side to it from start to finish, as Dulli sells the song with near perfection and a pinch of orchestral flair. Drummer Steve Earle (no, not that Steve Earle) also lends an important hand throughout this infectious ditty.

Most of these songs challenge the listener—never cookie-cutter, glossy pop songs, but murky, seedy and muddy tunes that are hard to ignore. “Turn on the Water” is a rootsy, New Orleans-like concoction that gels instantly. That soulful vibe is also found during “Debonair”, which occasionally has some epic, U2-leaning flourishes. This leads nicely into the first of two new songs written specifically for Unbreakable. “I’m a Soldier” has a leaner, pop flavoring as Dulli sings about hearing the first shot, while the song morphs into a slightly dance-tinged chorus. In fact, the tune could be renamed “I’m a Soul-dier” without much hassle. Later on, the band weaves more magic with “Magazine”, which has a softer feeling that one expects to bust out at the seams at any moment, and it slowly does just that, creating a groovy hook that listeners can sink their teeth into. The overall space and feel to this track makes one think it could have been a song done by The Twilight Singers at some point. The only down side might be how quickly it fades away.

Another asset to the record is that it’s not an anthology, thus allowing Dulli to create what he has stated in other recent interviews to be a “set list” fans might like to see from The Afghan Whigs. Thus it should come as no surprise that “66” slows things down a hair, yet still works on several levels, as does “Be Sweet”, as Dulli bobs and weaves with the rather graphic lyrical content. What seems to be the dark horse on the album is “Uptown Again”, which begins with a lush arrangement before heading down a dark, winding rock path that the band nails time and again. Meanwhile, the gravitas fuelling “I’m Her Slave”, taken from the band’s 1991 album Congregation, sounds as fresh and contemporary now as it did back then.

The last quarter of the collection contains probably some of the band’s biggest hits, kicking off with “Gentleman”, a rather quirky tune that starts off with an on-and-off backbeat and never really seems to take off, as Dulli sounds like he’s at times scatting some stream-of-consciousness poem. However, it’s quickly forgotten about with the bombastic “Let Me Lie to You”, and, perhaps the standout track among standout tracks here, “John The Baptist”, as horns chime in during the close, fleshing out this well-rounded nugget. Things are nicely wrapped up with the initially reflective, melancholic “Faded”, prior to Dulli steadying the proverbial rock ship. A perfect way to end an album that showcases a band in its prime.