This is a heavy, dirty, wounded fist
punching you in the gut. I can't listen to it all the time. I first got this after I saw the video for "Debonair" on MTV late at night. It was my soundtrack for the "Deathtrip", when Justin Knight and I drove through blacked-out LA to San Francisco, the day after the Northridge Earthquake. The look of this band; the sound, kinda blew my mind. Greg Dulli's vocals are rough, raw, and not that great, but perfect for the songs...Songs about addiction, broken relationships, and self-loathing. I understood these sentiments in my young adult years, naive as I was to the bigger picture. While I don't relate in the same way now, I can appreciate the chronicle this album represents, and the cries for salvation in every odd chord or sloppy drum-fill. And the album cover...
I saw Afghan Whigs at the old SOMA, and they played a lot of this album, as well as a great cover of "My World is Empty". Dulli chain-smoked onstage in black-jeans and a white button-up shirt, and I remember thinking he was the coolest sumbitch ever. The band drove through their set with relentless energy, and I felt like a bad-ass for being there. What foolishness. What bold, young, brash, beautiful and utter foolishness.
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