{"title":"The Afghan Whigs","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_up-in-it","title":"Up In It","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eUp In It\u003c\/i\u003e is The Afghan Whigs’ second full-length and their Sub Pop debut. The 1990 album, recorded by legendary producer Jack Endino, was critically acclaimed and garnered strong college-radio airplay. Until now, it was out of print on vinyl for over 25 years. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e*The LP and cassette versions contain the original 9 song tracklisting, but the digital download that comes with all formats includes all 13 songs previously found on the CD version. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":32611690840160,"sku":"700601","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826134007904,"sku":"700602","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826134073440,"sku":"700604","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556513624160,"sku":"700606","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/afghanwhigs-upinit-loserlp-mm.jpg?v=1581642612"},{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_congregation","title":"Congregation","description":"\u003cp\u003e1992’s \u003ci\u003eCongregation\u003c\/i\u003e, The Afghan Whigs’ third album, finds the Whigs’ soul and psychedelic influences shining through, and helped define the band’s sound for years to come. Until now, \u003ci\u003eCongregation\u003c\/i\u003e was out of print on vinyl since its original pressing sold out many years ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"Color 2xLP","offer_id":43110643990624,"sku":"701303","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826134466656,"sku":"701301","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826134368352,"sku":"701302","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826134433888,"sku":"701304","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556518768736,"sku":"701306","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/AfghanWhigs_Congregation_Mockup_2xLP_US_2000x1417_44accd1c-3ed3-4c45-99db-6e36bc66b1aa.jpg?v=1788155609"},{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_uptown-avondale","title":"Uptown Avondale","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eUptown Avondale\u003c\/i\u003e, released shortly after \u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/congregation\"\u003eCongregation\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e, features The Afghan Whigs paying tribute to their soul-music influences by performing covers of Stax and Motown classics. This LP pressing is the first time \u003ci\u003eUptown Avondale\u003c\/i\u003e has been released on vinyl in the US (its only previous vinyl pressing was a short European run in 1992).  \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826134532192,"sku":"701751","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556515033184,"sku":"701756","price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/theafghanwhigs-uptownavondale-cover-1500x1500-300.jpg?v=1581642629"},{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_do-to-the-beast","title":"Do to the Beast","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast\u003c\/i\u003e is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, the band has long stood out from its peers, with their savage, rapturous blend of hard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing obsessions. The new album serves as both a homecoming – it marks their return to Sub Pop, for whom the Whigs were the first signing from outside the label’s Northwest base – and a glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past thirty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast \u003c\/i\u003eproves an appropriately feral title for one of the most intense, cathartic records of Dulli’s entire career – one that adds fresh twists to The Afghan Whigs canon. On it, one finds the \u003ci\u003efilm noir \u003c\/i\u003estorytelling of \u003ci\u003eBlack Love\u003c\/i\u003e, the exuberance of \u003ci\u003e1965\u003c\/i\u003e, the brutal introspection of \u003ci\u003eGentlemen\u003c\/i\u003e, but rendered with a galvanized musical spirit and rhythmic heft that suggests transcendence and hope amidst the bloodletting. “A lot of records I’ve done stemmed from epochal experiences in my life – and this time 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 \u003ci\u003eRashomon\u003c\/i\u003e, with the story told from different points of memory.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast \u003c\/i\u003ewas created in L.A., New Orleans, Cincinnati, and Joshua Tree – a virtual map of the band’s past and present homes. “The album was named in Cincinnati, which is especially fitting,” Dulli notes. “I was recording a beatbox track for the song ‘Matamoros,’ and my friend Manuel Agnelli (of Italian rock band Afterhours) was in the control room. After I finished, he said it sounded like I was singing ‘Do to the beast what you do to the bush.’ And I thought, ‘Brother, you just named the record.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast\u003c\/i\u003e features Dulli and Curley joined by the Whigs’ current core players – guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic, multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson, and drummer Cully Symington. While original Whigs guitarist Rick McCollum does not appear on the record, a panoply of notable personages from the group’s past and present make memorable cameos: soul maverick Van Hunt, Mark McGuire (Emeralds), Usher’s musical director Johnny “Natural” Najera, Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys), Clay Tarver (Bullet LaVolta, Chavez), Dave Catching (QOTSA, Eagles of Death Metal), Patrick Keeler (Raconteurs, Greenhornes), Ben Daughtrey (Squirrel Bait), Joseph Arthur, and a host of others. For Dulli, these outside collaborators add crucial dimension. “Someone like Alain is a great texturalist,” Dulli says. “He and Mark McGuire create these, womblike tapestries and nuances. And Johnny Natural blew our minds when we played with him and Usher at South By Southwest. They were all instructed to play guitar not as guitar, but to create a supernatural sound – and each one of them ran with that.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLikewise, “It Kills” contrasts its lush Gamble and Huff-style orchestration with Van Hunt unleashing a passionate virtuoso howl – transforming the song in the process. “We’d brought Van Hunt on tour with the Whigs, and began duetting on his song ‘Mean Sleep’ together every night.,” Dulli notes. “He’d do this scream live that he didn't do on the recording; and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, he sounds like Bobby Womack!’ When I wrote ‘It Kills,’ I wanted another voice on it, like a Greek chorus, so I called Van. I said, “Do whatever you like, just try not to use actual words – and if you can do that Bobby Womack thing, do that, too!”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndeed, \u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast \u003c\/i\u003etakes The Afghan Whigs to previously uncharted zones. That’s clear from the Lennonesque primal screaming announcing album opener “Parked Outside” – one of the hardest-rocking Whigs songs ever, propelled by a pile-driving riff that would make Malcolm Young envious. First single “Algiers,” meanwhile, hotwires a pounding “Be My Baby” drumbeat with spaghetti-western atmospherics.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eElsewhere, “Matamoros” – named after a town in Mexico cursed by a series of Satanic murders – finds Dulli at his most psychosexually sinister: over its relentless, Zeppelin-meets-disco groove, he coolly threatens to expose “every little crime that you hide.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch themes of duality, viscera, and love destroyed echo throughout tracks that dynamically flow in and out of each other – from ambitious revenge fantasy “These Sticks” to album centerpiece “Lost in the Woods.” Here, Dulli imagines himself on his deathbed in an especially haunting lyric, set to a swinging melody evoking Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. “That song resonates the most with me,” he says. “It reminds me of my childhood; sitting in the back of my parents’ Bonneville hearing ‘You’re My Best Friend’ by Queen on AM radio. I played a distorted Wurlitzer at the end to capture that feeling; I did a lot of little personal homages like that throughout this record.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat there’s even a new Afghan Whigs release at all comes as something of a surprise, even to its members. After the band initially split in 2001, Dulli went on to considerable notoriety with his bands The Twilight Singers and The Gutter Twins (the latter an ongoing collaboration with close friend Mark Lanegan). While Whigs songs would pop up occasionally in his sets, Dulli didn’t fully engage that material again until a solo acoustic tour in 2010, which Curley joined for a few dates. The Afghan Whigs subsequently reunited for a successful 2012 tour that found them headlining major festivals like Lollapalooza, curating their own All Tomorrow’s Parties 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.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat wasn’t actually the case, however. The Afghan Whigs were unexpectedly brought back into the ring by \u003ci\u003eThe Fader, \u003c\/i\u003ewhich had arranged for them to play a surprise collaborative set with R\u0026amp;B superstar Usher at 2013’s SXSW conference. “That moment crystallized the possibility that we’d record together again,” Curley says. “Soon after, Greg began compiling the ideas he’d kept in his pocket that he felt were distinctly Whigs songs.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReunited anew, The Afghan Whigs will tour worldwide in support of \u003ci\u003eDo to the Beast\u003c\/i\u003e – kicking off an extensive jaunt with a performance at Coachella 2014 in April. “It feels like a celebration, and the start of something new,” Curley says. “Something that’s exhilarating and scary at the same time.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"Color 2xLP","offer_id":43110648184928,"sku":"710613","price":53.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP","offer_id":31826193776736,"sku":"710611","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826193809504,"sku":"710612","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556517687392,"sku":"710616","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/AfghanWhigs_DoToTheBeast_Mockup_2xLP_US_2000x1417_5ad2f7e6-17aa-47ad-98f0-b51450c3c70c.jpg?v=1788155900"},{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_you-want-love","title":"You Want Love","description":"","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"Digital","offer_id":31826385174624,"sku":"712236","price":1.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/afghanwhigs-youwantlove-cover-3000x3000-300.jpg?v=1581647343"},{"product_id":"the-afghan-whigs_in-spades","title":"In Spades","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Divination\/Cleromancy\/Comes the card that I refused to see”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\"\u003e\u003ci\u003e– The Afghan Whigs, “Oriole”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Cleromancy” isn’t a word one normally finds in rock lyrics. Then again, \u003ci\u003eIn Spades\u003c\/i\u003e – the forthcoming album by The Afghan Whigs, from which the new song “Oriole” hails – is defined only by its own mystical inner logic. The term means to divine, in a supernatural manner, a prediction of destiny from the random casting of lots: the throwing of dice, picking a card from a deck. From its evocative cover art to the troubled spirits haunting its halls, In Spades casts a spell that challenges the listener to unpack its dark metaphors and spectral imagery. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the one hand, \u003ci\u003eIn Spades\u003c\/i\u003e is as quintessentially Afghan Whigs as anything the group has ever done – fulfilling its original mandate to explore the missing link between howling Midwestern punk like Die Kreuzen and Hüsker Dü, The Temptations’ psychedelic soul symphonies, and the expansive hard-rock tapestries of Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd. At the same time, this new record continues to push beyond anything in the Whigs’ previous repertoire – another trademark, along with the explosive group dynamic captured on the recording. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIndeed, the chemistry of the lineup – Dulli, guitarists Dave Rosser and Jon Skibic, drummer Patrick Keeler, multi-instrumentalist Rick Nelson, and Whigs co-founder\/bassist John Curley – set the tone for \u003ci\u003eIn Spades\u003c\/i\u003e’ creation. When it came to follow up the band’s triumphant return to recording – \u003ci\u003e\u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/do_to_the_beast\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/do_to_the_beast\"\u003eDo To the Beast\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e (2014), which was the band’s first ever Top 40 album, – the die was cast. “This is the first time since \u003ci\u003eBlack Love\u003c\/i\u003e [the Whigs’ 1996 noir masterpiece] that we’ve done a full-blown band album,” Dulli says. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe joys, sorrows, and upheavals of innocence and experience echo throughout \u003ci\u003eIn Spades\u003c\/i\u003e: it powerfully documents where The Afghan Whigs have been, and where they might go next. For Dulli and Curley, it’s a journey that, since their origins as one of the first Sub Pop acts to be signed from outside the label’s Pacific Northwest base, has spanned decades. Dulli notes they were barely in their twenties when they first started the band, and yet here they are, fulfilling dreams long held and frequently realized. “Having a break from the Whigs helped me remember what made it so rewarding,” Curley says. “Over the course of a lifetime, there are constants, and there’s also change. You see who’s dropped off the vine – who’s going in reverse, and who’s still by your side. It’s interesting to see where life takes you, and where it doesn’t. That’s the journey and it hasn’t stopped.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn Spades\u003c\/i\u003e was recorded at Rick Nelson’s studio Marigny Sound in New Orleans, LA.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/congregation\"\u003eCongregation\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ca title=\"Link: https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/up_in_it\" href=\"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/releases\/the_afghan_whigs\/up_in_it\"\u003eUp In It\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e are also being released on cassette the same day and will be shipped out when they are available. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Afghan Whigs","offers":[{"title":"Color LP","offer_id":43110648512608,"sku":"717603","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":31826463883360,"sku":"711501","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":31826463916128,"sku":"711502","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":31826463948896,"sku":"711504","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":32556510347360,"sku":"711506","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/AfghanWhigs_InSpades_Mockup_LP_EU_US_2000x1417_004bb5bb-4bc0-4c92-9a34-f1968af9dfad.jpg?v=1788156037"}],"url":"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/collections\/the-afghan-whigs\/format-color-2xlp.oembed","provider":"Sub Pop Mega Mart","version":"1.0","type":"link"}