Cincinnati‘s rock bigshots THE AFGHAN WHIGS celebrate their 40th anniversary as
a band this year. To cement the monumental moment, they treated our ears to their splendid 10th album, named Soft Control (you can stream it below), which landed
last August and spread the festive message on their current tour.
Last night they stopped in Antwerp at the historic ballroom venue called Roma.
Two songs in and frontman Greg Dulli wanted more light in the room: “You can see me, and I wanna see you too.” From there on, it was all feet on the pedals. The Whigs went for
a best-of and 4 tracks (My Lover / Jungle Roux / The Deepest Part Of The Darkest Show / Duvateen) from the new full-length Soft Control.
After 4 decades, the Whigs still have the electrifying energy and blazing brio of
young punks. On stage (as I experienced several times before) they become a
mean riff machine. It’s amps and sirens up, exceeding the permitted volume in
decibels. Yes, the Cincinnati crew are burningly LOUD. Hells bells.
Guess what, despite the roaring racket, Dulli‘s immense voice manages to come on
top of it all. Oh my, oh my. His lung capacity is off the charts, and he obviously enjoys
it to the full extent. Even in the quieter intervals ( Algiers / My Lover / Duvateen / It Kills),
you could still hear Dulli & Co outside of the venue.
Only the greats can still make great records and draw full houses after such an
expansive career. And Dulli, at 61, and his squad are far from done. Hats off to
these always-delivering gentlemen.
SETLIST
Jungle Roux
I’m Her Slave
Light as a Feather
What Jail Is Like
House of I
Toy Automatic
Going to Town
Debonair
My Lover
Algiers Somethin’ Hot
The Slide Song
Catch a Colt
The Deepest Part of the Darkest Show
It Kills
Please, Baby, Please
Fountain and Fairfax
My Enemy
Son of the South
Duvateen Summer’s Kiss
Into The Floor
Miles Iz Ded
TUTV: Hiraeth is a genuinely soul-stirring and brutally honest record.
Singer-songwriter/guitarist Scott Marsden recalls his past demons and finds comfort
in the beauty of his beloved Wales, its compelling history and the making of this new formidable album. He’s an emotive storyteller, blessed with a heartwarming voice that
fits his self-exploratory quest in every respect, spiritually and musically.
This is unquestionably the band’s most coherent, engrossing, and complete work,
excelling on every level and showing the cathartic power of music, once again. Mind
you, their previous work is more than noteworthy, but Hiraeth‘s full-blown execution makes it a grand achievement to cherish for a long time.
One of the best indie guitar rock-pop albums of the
year. A milestone for the Welshmen. Hands down.
TUTV: They go up, they get down. Up again. Down again. At first I was confused by the
by now pretty famous indie duo’s changing sonic moods breaking down the record’s
flow.
Lullabies, rock outs, moony mid-tempo reflections. One tune they put you in a soothing modus with a lullaby. The next tune they plug in their amps for a couple of pelvis-shaking firecrackers. Then it goes back to life-reflecting/watching thoughts, daily reveries, existentialist questions, and some depressing moments. Quite something else than
their non-stop groovy fiesta debut.
But I didn’t give up, as I felt some sort of connection anyway, and I kept on listening,
and it all started to make sense. This record’s emotional fluctuations, musically, vocally
and lyrically, became one full Getdown Services picture/experience that sticks seamlessly
in the end. Big score.
TUTV: These young Mancunians nail it big time with this crackerjack debut. Their ramshackle post-punk fieriness is startling. Its jittery, hypnotic, speedy, repetitive riffing rippers, spirited with Geese-resonating duet vocals combine for a wayward, thrilling
record. A wowzers way to start your journey.
TUTV: The Afghan Whigs catalog is strikingly notable for its mad keen fervidness,
true-blue authenticity, at times its dark emotionality, and its sonic brilliance. Soft Control has all those substantial characteristics.
Greg Dulli is one of the greatest guitar-rock songwriters and blessed with a terrific
voice. Lyrically, he digs deep down again with inner-soul-searching quests. After four
decades, The Whigs are alive and kicking once again. Respect!
Album: ALIEN METAL
They just released their 28th LP in 14 years.
They must be the hardest-working band on
this planet.
Credit: Maclay Heriot
TUTV: It’s a pretty unusual record for the riff junks from down under, as they have thrown their guitars through the window and surprise with a full electronic opus. They go back to the British 90s techno raves.
Alien Metal resonates as if KG&TLW locked themselves up for a couple
of weeks playing Underworld, The Prodigy and Leftfield records on repeat.
Expect an incessant tsunami of hyperkinetic beats, mind-blowing electro
Krautrock madness, and deformed vocal flashes. Full blast forward without
breaks. Not one moment to have a much-needed breather. E-cstatic.
Who: London-based collective with a fluid membership, active since 2016,
who value expressing their ideas and feelings simply and directly, sometimes uber minimally, over any flash displays of musical skills. There have been Scottish, English, Australian and Irish members at various points.
MR: “Building better worlds…what could possibly go wrong?…history always shows that giving
a government as much ‘authority’ over citizens as it would like, works out really well…it’s best practice to treat everyone like a potential criminal…total surveillance makes you free. So, here’s a new happy go lucky MR album for 2026.”
TUTV: It feels like the alarming ghost of visionary novellist/poet/journalist George Orwell is roaming about this record, attracting attention to his 1949 dystopian book Nineteen Eighty-Four once again.
Sonically, these rebels run, run, run like The Velvet Underground in their early days when they looked/played like the last gloom and doom band on earth. Strangely similar (and vice versa) to the debut LP by British young post-punk gunslingers (see/hear above). Then, why the fuck is the mainstream press not talking about this stunning record as they do abundantly about Westside Cowboy?
Whatever, MR constructed a must-hear, dazzling-puzzling Götterdämmerung rock opus for your twilight hours.
TUTV:Man/Woman/Chainsaw join the (new) generation of new Brit-post-punk artilleries that started sometime post Brex-shit, with innovative bands such as Black Midi (already gone), Black Country New Road, Squid, Ditz, Bdrmm and newcomers Modern Woman, Westside Cowboy, Mary In The Junkyard, and My New Band Believe.
They have one thing in common: looking for new musical angels, exciting ideas
and unconventional soundscapes, within the broad rock-pop-punk universe,
without being arty farty.
M/W/C does it now for the first time with this debut LP. Whimsical, chopped-up song structures, spine-tingling melodiousness, two perfervid vocalists, nightmarish stories, mood-changing violins and confusing orchestrations. Everything in place to score a bodacious firstborn. Have a bloodcurdling trip.
Who: Post-punk project of Manchester-born, experimental singer-songwriter-guitarist Vincent Gerard “Vini” Reilly (now 72). The band’s name refers to the Durruti Column,
an anarchist military unit in the Spanish Civil War, named after Buenaventura Durruti.
TUTV: This is a soothing, ambient Eno-like soundtrack for a melodramatic movie. Reilly offers cinematic, dreamy soundscapes, rather than conventional song structures.
His singular, crystalline, finger-picking guitar playing style commands the aural tone throughout.
7 out of the 11 tracks are instrumentals. Caoilfhionn Rose sings on 3, Lucas Elliot
on one, and Reilly stirs with vulnerable vocals on the album’s best piece, the wondrous musing Scammer. Give Renascent a couple of spins; once you’re connected with The Durutti Column‘s imaginative and blue-sky world, you’ll enjoy a very gratifying record.
TUTV: 10 years since they formed this London indie collective unleashed their debut LP, following their attention-grabbing 7-track debut EP My Eyes, Brother! from 2022.
A brassy, funky and punky-jazzy party record, stuffed with pelvis-wobbling grooves and Angus Rodgers‘ bossy vocals pushing his abstract stories up front. OP blend, effortlessly vaudeville, ska and mariachi elements in heart-stopping and invigorating dynamics.
Who: The charismatic Californian
frontman of The Killers
The LP is recorded in Nashville, the mecca of country music, with some renowned
country musicians. Rooted in his formative childhood years in the small town of Nephi, Utah, the timeless sonic approach proves to be the ideal home for Flowers’ most personal and vulnerable songwriting yet.
TUTV: When Flowers works solo, he regularly delves into his youth, coming up
with both sad and happy memories. He doesn’t trash anything whatsoever here.
He drenches his melancholic stories in bittersweet country tunes.
A bit sugary here and there, but nevertheless, the overall musical radiance
is very charming and entertaining. Music for daydreaming moments.
