*Loser edition vinyl is SOLD OUT. Black vinyl is shipping now.
Notice: LP First Pressing Issue - We have found that there is a flaw on side D of the first pressing of the vinyl edition of Do to the Beast. There is no problem with the CD version. If you pre-ordered the record from us here in the Sub Pop Mega Mart, and would like a replacement LP2, please email us with your order number and shipping address and we will issue replacement for that disc.
- All new orders placed for the LP version will receive the repressed version, free of previous defect.
*The LP version is pressed on 180 gram, 45 rpm vinyl.
Do to the Beast is the first new album by The AfghanWhigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, theband has long stood out from its peers, with their savage, rapturous blend ofhard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing obsessions. The newalbum serves as both a homecoming – it marks their return to Sub Pop, for whomthe Whigs were the first signing from outside the label’s Northwest base – anda glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past thirtyyears.
Do to the Beast proves an appropriately feral title for one ofthe most intense, cathartic records of Dulli’s entire career – one that addsfresh twists to The Afghan Whigs canon. On it, one finds the film noir storytelling of Black Love, the exuberance of 1965, the brutal introspection of Gentlemen, but rendered with agalvanized musical spirit and rhythmic heft that suggests transcendence and hopeamidst the bloodletting. “A lotof records I’ve done stemmed from epochal experiences in my life – and thistime I’ve used them all,” Dulli says. “These new songs are very visual to me.They come from the neighborhoods of my mind. It’s like Rashomon, with the story told from different points of memory.”
Do to theBeast was created inL.A., New Orleans, Cincinnati, and Joshua Tree – a virtual map of the band’spast and present homes. “The album was named in Cincinnati, which isespecially fitting,” Dulli notes. “I was recording a beatbox track for the song‘Matamoros,’ and my friend Manuel Agnelli (of Italian rock band Afterhours) wasin the control room. After I finished, he said it sounded like I was singing ‘Doto the beast what you do to the bush.’ And I thought, ‘Brother, you just namedthe record.’”
Do to the Beast features Dulli and Curley joined by theWhigs’ current core players – guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic,multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson, and drummer Cully Symington. While original Whigs guitarist Rick McCollumdoes not appear on the record, a panoply of notable personages from the group’spast and present make memorable cameos: soul maverick Van Hunt, Mark McGuire (Emeralds), Usher’s musical directorJohnny “Natural” Najera, Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, ArcticMonkeys), Clay Tarver (Bullet LaVolta, Chavez), Dave Catching (QOTSA, Eagles ofDeath Metal), Patrick Keeler (Raconteurs, Greenhornes), Ben Daughtrey (SquirrelBait), Joseph Arthur, and a host of others. For Dulli, these outsidecollaborators add crucial dimension. “Someone like Alain is a great texturalist,” Dulli says. “He and MarkMcGuire create these, womblike tapestries and nuances. And Johnny Natural blew ourminds when we played with him and Usher at South By Southwest. They were allinstructed to play guitar not as guitar, but to create a supernatural sound –and each one of them ran with that.”
Likewise, “It Kills”contrasts its lush Gamble and Huff-style orchestration with Van Hunt unleashinga passionate virtuoso howl – transforming the song in the process. “We’dbrought Van Hunt on tour with the Whigs, and began duetting on his song ‘Mean Sleep’ together every night.,” Dulli notes. “He’d do this screamlive that he didn't do on the recording; and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, hesounds like Bobby Womack!’ When I wrote ‘It Kills,’ I wanted anothervoice on it, like a Greek chorus, so I called Van. I said, “Do whatever youlike, just try not to use actual words – and if you can do that Bobby Womack thing,do that, too!”
Indeed, Do to the Beast takes The Afghan Whigs topreviously uncharted zones. That’sclear from the Lennonesque primal screaming announcing album opener “ParkedOutside” – one of the hardest-rocking Whigs songs ever, propelled by apile-driving riff that would make Malcolm Young envious. First single “Algiers,” meanwhile, hotwires a pounding “Be My Baby”drumbeat with spaghetti-western atmospherics. Elsewhere, “Matamoros” – named after a town in Mexico cursed by a seriesof Satanic murders – finds Dulli at his most psychosexually sinister: over itsrelentless, Zeppelin-meets-disco groove, he coolly threatens to expose “everylittle crime that you hide.”
Such themes ofduality, viscera, and love destroyed echo throughout tracks that dynamicallyflow in and out of each other – from ambitious revenge fantasy “These Sticks”to album centerpiece “Lost in the Woods.” Here, Dulli imagines himself on hisdeathbed in an especially haunting lyric, set to a swinging melody evoking DukeEllington and Cab Calloway. “That song resonates the most with me,” he says. “Itreminds me of my childhood; sitting in the back of my parents’ Bonnevillehearing ‘You’re My Best Friend’ by Queen on AM radio. I played a distorted Wurlitzer at the end to capture that feeling; Idid a lot of little personal homages like that throughout this record.”
That there’s even anew Afghan Whigs release at all comes as something of a surprise, even to itsmembers. After the band initially split in 2001, Dulli went on to considerablenotoriety with his bands The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins (the latteran ongoing collaboration with close friend Mark Lanegan). While Whigs songswould pop up occasionally in his sets, Dulli didn’t fully engage that material againuntil a solo acoustic tour in 2010, which Curley joined for a few dates. TheAfghan Whigs subsequently reunited for a successful 2012 tour that found themheadlining major festivals like Lollapalooza, curating their own All Tomorrow’sParties gathering, and selling out prestigious venues throughout the U.S.,Europe, and Southern Hemisphere. But once the tour was over, so, apparently,were the Whigs. “We played a final New Year’s Eve show in Cincinnati,”Dulli recalls. “And I assumed we were done. We’d completed the cycle.”
That wasn’t actuallythe case, however. The Afghan Whigs were unexpectedly brought back into thering by The Fader, which had arrangedfor them to play a surprise collaborative set with R&B superstar Usher at2013’s SXSW conference. “That moment crystallized the possibility that we’drecord together again,” Curley says. “Soon after, Greg began compiling theideas he’d kept in his pocket that he felt were distinctly Whigs songs.”
Reunited anew, The Afghan Whigs will tour worldwide insupport of Do to the Beast –kicking off an extensive jaunt with a performance at Coachella 2014 in April. “It feels like a celebration, and the start ofsomething new,” Curley says. “Something that’s exhilarating and scary at thesame time.”
