Of the bands that came from the "heavy alternative" scene typified by the
Sub Pop
roster in the late '80s to early '90s,
the Afghan Whigs
were one of the very best -- their music was strong and powerful, the songs were outstanding soul-inflected hard rock, and
Greg Dulli
's nicotine-bathed voice was the perfect fit for their musical approach. But they were also willing to dig deeper into the dark spaces of the human heart than nearly anyone else in rock, especially on their finest and most compelling album, 1993's
Gentlemen
. It seemed the band couldn't go any deeper, and they didn't on their final two albums, 1996's
Black Love
and 1998's
1965
, but after a heroically received reunion tour in 2012,
returned to the recording studio and have offered up a work nearly as dark and unsettling as
, 2014's
Do to the Beast
. It sounds a good bit different than their previous work: vocalist and songwriter
Dulli
and bassist/multi-instrumentalist
John Curley
are the only original members of the band on board, replaced with a larger ensemble (including lots of keys, occasional strings, and busy percussion) that boasts a broader dramatic scope than the classic
Whigs
' sound.
's phrasing and sense of drama are as solid as ever, even if his instrument is significantly grainier than it has been in the past, and
chronicles a relationship just as damaged as you'd expect from
, as the performances and arrangements manage to build into something more than the sum of their parts.
is an ambitious attempt to re-create the feeling of
while retooling their sonic fingerprint, and the final product is intelligent and often fascinating. ~ Mark Deming