Random Desire
Though *Random Desire* is billed as his first solo album (excluding 2005’s rarities collection *Amber Headlights*), Greg Dulli has more than proven his songwriting chops for over 30 years with his two main projects The Afghan Whigs and The Twilight Singers. The term “solo\" is often thrown around for any artist who wants to make a statement, but he makes sure to earn that distinction: Dulli recorded every part of the album, from the piano lines to the drum and bass riffs, combining all those elements over his anguished lyrical wit. “Carry me back, now I am your sin/Singing the song as I touch your skin,” he yearns on \"Marry Me,” conveying brooding sentiments with his soulful tenor. Dulli aims high on “Sempre” and “The Tide,” blending surging guitars and dramatic piano parts that build into explosive finishes. “When does it end?/Does the feeling come again?” he sings on “Slow Pan,” letting his guard down with a harp-led ballad which closes the album on a bittersweet note.
The Afghan Whigs leader's debut solo album balances guitar-slashing catharsis with candelabra-lit elegance, taking inspired tangents from his signature nocturnal sensibility without departing from it entirely.
It was never a secret that Greg Dulli was the (relatively) benevolent dictator of the Afghan Whigs, especially on the group's reunion albums of the 2010s, 2014's Do to the Beast and 2017's In Spades, which retained the name and the thematic obsessions of the Whigs' best work of the '90s but with a decidedly different lineup and musical approach. By the end, the Afghan Whigs were Dulli and whoever else he chose to bring along, and presumably tired of the ruse, he's chosen to cut out the middlemen and issued his first solo album, 2020's Random Desire, which does a better job of fleshing out his musical and thematic tropes than he managed on Do to the Beast and In Spades. Random Desire doesn't rock like prime Whigs, but the rhythmic patterns and melodic shifts have Dulli written all over them, and the less aggressive attack suits this set of songs, which, now as always, are a product of his poisonous fascination with romantic/sexual conquest. Dulli laid down the bulk of the backing tracks by himself, while bringing in guests to fancy them up with horns, strings, pedal steel, and extra guitar; the effect leaves the performances a bit rough around the edges, but in a way that adds more than it takes away. It's also a good complement for Dulli's voice, which isn't as strong or precise as it once was yet still communicates an urgency that's riveting, though with the passage of time he's lost a bit of his prideful swagger, which is also reflected in the lyrics. Here the Greg Dulli character is more aware than ever of his flaws, even though he still does nothing to change them, and that self-knowledge gives the music a keen, edgy vibe. Random Desire doesn't necessarily sound like the Afghan Whigs in their glory days, but it does a much better job of summoning the emotional energy and musical tension that made Congregation and Gentlemen classics, and it's the best music he's made since the end of the Whigs' first era.
After 30 years, eight Afghan Whigs records and five more from Twilight Singers, it's odd to think that Greg Dulli is just now releasing his...
Random Desire by Greg Dulli, album review by Adam Fink. The Afghan Whigs frontman's debut solo LP comes out on February 21, via Royal Cream/BMG