The Twilight Singers

Greg Dulli, leader of heavy-breathing rockers the Afghan Whigs, started the Twilight Singers in 1997 as a folk/trip-hop collaboration with two other singers, Harold Chichester (Howlin' Maggie) and Shawn Smith (Brad). Due to various band and record-company obligations, Twilight wasn't released until 2000; in the meantime, Dulli had significantly revised the album, with help from the British remixing duo Fila Brazillia. The result is a hodgepodge. Folkier songs such as "That's Just How That Bird Sings" fail to convince, while the bleak electronic vistas of "Annie Mae" and "Last Temptation" are only intermittently engaging.

Blackberry Belle features Dulli as lead vocalist on all but one track (the closing "Number Nine," graced by Mark Lanegan's funereal croak) and hangs together much better. From the very first couplet of opener "Martin Eden" -- "Black out the windows/It's party time" -- the Twilight Singers set a dark and desperate mood that suits the harder, denser sound. Dulli's obsession with misery can be hard to take, but at least his tunes have more body this time out. (MAC RANDALL)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide