Do To the Beast

The stylishly sleazy intensity is still there on their first record since 1998's excellent 1965, only with a wider palette.

At just 10 songs Do To The Beast is concise and enjoyable, but doesn’t have the cohesive energy and poetry of its predecessor.

The Whigs seem only capable of reclaiming their turf in fits and starts.

The final product is intelligent and often fascinating, but it doesn't deliver like the Afghan Whigs do at their best, and ultimately comes off as a brave but somewhat unsatisfying experiment.

Dulli's throat is not quite what it was when he sang "I'm not the man my actions would suggest" on 1993's Debonair (but the jury is out on whether he's affecting strain or really straining). The outro, These Sticks, is a ballad whose chord progressions and textures wander far too close to Radiohead. Stick around, though, and the Whigs' stately menace wins out over the peculiar parallels.

While his obsession is sincere, the oppressive weight of the arrangements, freighted with heavy rock guitars and declamatory drums, occasionally fattened by dramatic strings, makes them hard to engage with on a personal level.

It still sounds like The Afghan Whigs, but it sounds more like re-workings of b-sides that may have shined in the sun of another decade.

This reinvented band reflects Dulli circa 2014, and this record sparks fresh intrigue but sadly never quite rekindles what made the Whigs so unique in the first place.