It's all about phonetics. Or so Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli will have you think.

"I'm big on long vowels, I've noticed. For me, it's all about how the words sound."

Right. Like in the song "Neglekted," off the Afghan Whigs latest album, 1965: "I knew a girl/extraordinary/suggested something/unsanitary." It rhymes, sure, but it's obvious that it ain't just about how the vowels and the consonants slip off the tongue.

Greg Dulli has always lingered in that nebulous realm between libidinous lust and debilitating love, his cleverly crafted lyrics reaching into the pockets of sadism, desire, sentimentality, betrayal, failure and brutal honesty. What he pulls out, he interweaves with sexy, Marvin Gaye-era R&B, early-Nineties grunge, Seventies funk, timeless soul and a whole lot of attitude. And while he certainly knows how to pick words, with the Afghan Whigs, it's all in the delivery.

Formed in the late Eighties in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Afghan Whigs (comprised of Dulli, guitarist Rick McCollum, bassist/keyboardist John Curley and drummer Steve Earle, who has since been replaced with Michael Horrigan) honed their rump-shaking noise gigging at bars near local colleges. Not long after releasing Big Top Halloween on their own Ultra Suede label, they were swiped up by Seattle's Sub Pop Records, home to Mudhoney, Tad, L7 and, of course, Nirvana. They hardly fit into the seminal grunge label's roster, but their critically acclaimed Up In It put them on the map. By 1992, the band was a solid entity, releasing the melodramatic and gothic Congregation. But it wasn't until 1994's Gentlemen, a complex and brooding contemplation of love gone vicious, planted itself firmly on Best Album charts that Greg Dulli found himself a certified sex god, and his album the soundtrack to many a break-up.

Four labels, five albums and eleven years since their formation in Ohio, Greg et al found themselves in the heart of the French Quarter to record the eleven songs that comprise 1965. "It's lawless and the bars never close," explains Dulli between puffs off an expertly rolled spliff. Whatever the reason for picking New Orleans as home base, the city's smells, sounds and celebratory nature are all over the album. Having tapped into his inner Usher on 1965, Dulli at once exalts women, praises the darkest nuances of sex and articulates lust, love and desire. Songs like "66," "Somethin' Hot," and "Crazy" are booty-shaking classics. "John the Baptist" is stadium rock at its sultriest, and "The Slide Song" explores the archetypal, slippery sound of the Afghans. The short, unorthodox "Sweet Son of a Bitch," at a mere twenty-three seconds, however, is the most curious. Recorded in Dulli's bedroom, the "song" clearly documents the act of copulation. Whether it's Dulli in the act, though, is questionable.

"That's pure conjecture," Dulli giggles. "People have sex, you know? I ain't hurting anyone, putting a beautiful song on the album. To me, it's a song, and it fit into the context of the rest of the songs on the record." On an album that expresses a lust for life and love, it certainly does.

HEIDI SHERMAN
(October 27, 1998)