Do To the Beast

It's been as long time, but Do To The Beast finds The Afghan Whigs doing what they do, ahem, beast. [19 Apr 2014, p.54]

Ultimately Do to the Beast lacks that gritty, seedy bite that defined The Afghan Whigs' greatest moments.

The stylishly sleazy intensity is still there on their first record since 1998's excellent 1965, only with a wider palette.

Mark the musical prowess of individual band members as key to fragile moments, nuances and nods to a variety of other styles: country twangs and slides, soul, classical, punk, funk, and even, blue-grass.

It still sounds like The Afghan Whigs, but it sounds more like re-workings of b-sides that may have shined in the sun of another decade.

The deep soulfulness that always set The Afghan Whigs apart from the pack was no mirage, and on Do To The Beast, it has matured with grace and power. [May 2014, p.86]

At times it's almost too much to take in, the album's secrets and flavours gradually revealing themselves on the third or fourth listen. [May 2014, p.112]

The result is a combustible album that doesn’t seek to recapture the band’s old spark so much as light a new one.

The band's flair for drama comes to the forefront on the "be My Baby"--quoting "Algiers" and intensely epic closer "These Sticks." [No. 108, p.53]

Longtime fans will relish the return as Greg Dulli’s voice--full of longing, sex and anger--has never sounded better; new listeners will marvel at the drama that was so prevalent in bands from the ’90s, and that can be so lacking now.

At just 10 songs Do To The Beast is concise and enjoyable, but doesn’t have the cohesive energy and poetry of its predecessor.

Do to the Beast may not always sound like an Afghan Whigs album, but it operates like one, scavenging the darker corners of pop history to create something personal, vital, and urgent.

They've managed to do themselves justice, and that should be enough not only to please their existing fans, but to win a few new ones too.

The least boring band in the world awoke from its slumber just to deliver a snoozer.

The Whigs seem only capable of reclaiming their turf in fits and starts.

Lead vocalist/head louche Greg Dulli's dark obsessions and predatory narrators manage to sound as erotically entrancing as he pushes 50 as they did when he was courting 25, aging gracefully like a snifter of peaty scotch rather than a cup of flat beer.

Do To The Beast is nowhere near as tortured as the band’s masterpiece, 1993’s Gentlemen. But it’s still comfortable in the shadows, and for that matter, kicking up a good bit of noise.

The album plays more like another iteration of Dulli's solo career than the next chapter in the band's history.

If you’re a fan of the Whigs, Do to the Beast will push all the right buttons and even add a few new ones for you to think about.

A brutal and beauteous slither from the grave.

The final product is intelligent and often fascinating, but it doesn't deliver like the Afghan Whigs do at their best, and ultimately comes off as a brave but somewhat unsatisfying experiment.

It has the focus and fire of a terrific Afghan Whigs album.

Dulli's throat is not quite what it was when he sang "I'm not the man my actions would suggest" on 1993's Debonair (but the jury is out on whether he's affecting strain or really straining). The outro, These Sticks, is a ballad whose chord progressions and textures wander far too close to Radiohead. Stick around, though, and the Whigs' stately menace wins out over the peculiar parallels.

The Afghan Whigs remain a high stakes band, conducting business not with a eye on self-preservation, but in the heat of the moment. [May 2014, p.72]

This reinvented band reflects Dulli circa 2014, and this record sparks fresh intrigue but sadly never quite rekindles what made the Whigs so unique in the first place.

There isn’t a bad album in the Whigs / Twilight Singers / Gutter Twins back-catalogue but Do to the Beast manages to be at once more varied in style and more consistent in quality than any of its predecessors.

The record is just playing true to form for the veterans, proving that the beast is back with teeth bared and a few more tricks up its hairy sleeves.

It may not be the best album this year and it certainly won’t be one of the most influential or contemporary--there are slews of reviews here for those well-deserved albums--but it may rank among the most important.

Dulli is a man still capable of the best in sweat-soaked R&B flavoured rock ‘n’ roll, but he now has a range of subtler, more graceful maneuvers too.

Dulli wears these songs like a favourite jacket, and they gradually increase in tension and widescreen melodrama.