posted 07/23/2006 (Sun) @ 04:46 pm
>>> Music Reviews
Twilight Singers - Powder Burns (2006)
Proof that music ain’t dead yet.
- Toward the Waves
- I’m Ready
- There’s Been An Accident
- Bonnie Brae
- Forty Dollars
- Candy Cane Crawl
- Underneath the Waves
- My Time (Has Come)
- Dead to Rights
- The Conversation
- Powder Burns
- I Wish I Was
There are people out there listening to the radio. They want to be rescued. Long since tired of riding dirty on a honkytonk badonkadonk that makes one want to la-la, there are some that would argue that Y2K was really the day the music died. (If not even sooner, but those folks didn’t like Nirvana, Alice in Chains or Soundgarden. Go figure.)
Well, anyone who’s heard “Gentlemen” or “Congregation” or any other record by the Afghan Whigs should be yelling “Rescue me, Dulli!” And on “Powder Burns,” Greg’s delivered the goods.
Possibly the most soul-infused yet forward-thinking rock record since the Whigs’ “Black Love,” the new Twilight Singers record still shouldn’t be construed as an Afghan Whigs album without the name. Despite Dulli wearing lead singer shoes, which definitely aids in stamping any project with a signature raspy-throated, tunelessly-endearing sound, the backing band and instrumentation are a far cry from the rabies-inflicted punk animal that was the Whigs. Sure, it’s dirty, dirty, grungy blues-rock, but one might be surprised what creeps into a song here and there. “Bonnie Brae” is a melancholy headbanger that could almost be called blue-collar shoegaze. Piano and violin pepper tracks like “There’s Been An Accident,” while rushing, watery electronic influence is lovingly splashed here and there, most obviously on the intro piece “Toward the Waves”/”I’m Ready.”
Of course to think ahead, people usually end up looking back to see how good music was made in the first place. Dulli liked smashing Beatles riffs around on his covers record so much that he’s taken to purloining lyrics, too, reframing the timeless refrain of “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” with a derisive sneer and a cranky guitar din (”Forty Dollars”).
Not every word on “Powder Burns” is an homage, however. Lyrically, Dulli has always struck me as a singing Charles Bukowski. Sometimes it’s exactly who you need to hear from to fall asleep at night when you’re too bleary-eyed to read.
Tags: american, blue collar, greg dulli, hard rock, rescue me
