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May 9, 2017Greg Dulli’s vocals grow only more aching with age as he transitions from cocky young buck to greying Don Juan. There are jagged riffs and funky organs aplenty; the latter a welcome call-back to last year’s reissue of 1996’s sumptuous Black Love. Yet there’s a fresh emphasis on lush, elegantly experimental arrangements with much snazzy brass and graceful orchestration on show.
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May 10, 2017Ultimately, this is the best thing Dulli has put his name to since Blackberry Belle.
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May 4, 2017In Spades sees Greg Dulli synthesizing all of his musical and thematic elements seemingly into everything he’s ever wanted.
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May 10, 2017An already impressive album that both solidifies their reputation as one of the more compelling bands to come out of the 90s alternative landscape, and cements their reunion as one of the few necessary ones that are currently happening.
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Jun 19, 2017A lean 35 minutes, the whole of In Spades eases us into Dulli’s gripping and emotionally fraught accounts, offering a noble reason for us to feel some sympathy for him after letting go some of his defeatist guise.
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May 16, 2017As often, Dulli brings the devil into lurid though realistic scenarios of decadence. Sex, drugs, damnation and witchcraft, along with ruminations on lust, aging, memory and oblivion, live in disturbing proximity and maybe account for the daunting scale of In Spades. It’s the right amount of too much.
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May 16, 2017Vocally he’s still capable of making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The rougher edges and more aggressive attack that coloured his early performances might not be so much in evidence, but what he lacks in rawness, he makes up for with sheer soul.
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May 15, 2017Their 2014 comeback Do to the Beast--featuring just Dulli and bassist John Curley from the original line-up--was a little underwhelming, but its follow-up finds them rewinding the years more successfully.
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Kerrang!May 11, 2017The record flows effortlessly from disco to all-out rock ballad, and it ends with a stunningly atmospheric climax only they can pull off. [6 May 2017, p.52]
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May 9, 2017Dulli and company manage to elatedly deliver everything long-standing fans crave in an Afghan Whigs album--and they do so in spades.
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May 4, 2017Ingenuity in spades.
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May 3, 2017In Spades is all Whigs. Dulli has never sounded better. If you ever loved the Whigs you will love this.
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May 1, 2017[The album] will stand as one of the Afghan Whigs’ finest and most ambitious works.
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MojoApr 27, 2017A deeper return to that midnight shade of soul frontman Greg Dulli long ago made his own. The grungy tenor of the previous album is now mostly absent. [Jun 2017, p.94]
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Q MagazineApr 27, 2017This matches some of their best work. [Jun 2017, p.103]
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UncutApr 27, 2017In Spades is a thrillingly impassioned addition to their catalogue. [Jun 2017, p.21]
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May 5, 2017In Spades clocks in at just 10 songs in 36 minutes, but feels as expansive and substantial as a double-album statement.
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May 4, 2017In Spades carries a few more of the maniacal stretches that have marked the band’s most interesting moments, especially in the use of Dulli’s voice.
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May 11, 2017So much of In Spades recalls what makes the Whigs so much fun. It’s unapologetically brash, soulful, seductive, and more sophisticated than naysayers might care to admit. What prevents the record from nearing the realm of Gentlemen or Black Love really begins and ends with Dulli’s vocals.
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MagnetJun 27, 2017Spades is a grower, as they say, only revealing its charms to patient listeners over repeated listens. [No. 143, p.51]
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May 4, 2017It's Dulli's band, and what he's delivered here honestly satisfies.
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Apr 27, 2017The resulting sound is mature and measured, with similarities to Dulli’s work with the Twilight Singers more easily applicable than anything in Whigs essentials Congregation or Gentleman.
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May 5, 2017He [Greg Dulli] can still hit that sweet spot of come-hither crooning, but the production hides much of his more agitated wails in the mix. The vocals are therefore no longer the dominant element of the music.
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May 10, 2017The results are spiritually exhausting.