Customer Reviews

Powder Burns

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Twilight Singers, essentially singer-songwriter Greg Dulli's continuation of the Afghan Whigs (who disbanded after its last album in 1998), issued one of 2003's best albums, "Blackberry Belle", which they then followed with the not very interesting all-covers album "She Loves You" the next year.

"Powder Burns" (12 tracks, 49 min.) picks up the thread nicely from "Blackberry Belle". The sound and themes are familiar: loneliness, despair, yet somewhere also hope. After a short instumental intro, the album crashes into you with "I'm Ready", an arena-sized rocker. The first half of the album is almost flawless, with "Bonnie Brae" and "Forty Dollars" as the other standouts, the latter containing many Beatles references (and, yes, a shout-out to "She Loves You, Yea, Yea Yea"!). On the slower tracks, such as "Candy Cane Crawl" and "The Conversation", I can't help but be reminded of Peter Gabriel's sound somehow. The second half of the album is not as intense, although the title track is quite mesmerising (and intense!), with a hope-lifiting outro of ocean waves crashing.

It's still a mystery to me why the Afghan Whigs, with all their critical acclaim, were never able to cross into mainstream-alternative success. Greg Dulli, however, has not looked back, and continues to make outstanding albums, now with the Twilight Singers. And if you have the chance to catch these guys live, don't miss them, the Twilight Singers' shows are an experience!

With everything thats happened in New Orleans the past 9 months it's hard for anyone who has been through that not to be floored by this record. Like Blackberry Belle, the city drips from this record. From the death of his closest friend Ted Demme
to the near total devestation of one of his beloved haunts, all the while struggling with his own inner addictions, Dulli works
magic under tragedy. It's hard not to see utter destruction and
human tragedy when that wall of sound hits in Bonnie Brae or
feel that misplaced daylight in Theres Been An Accident. The strongest tracks in my opinion has to be the brutal honest Candy
Cane Crawl and I Wish I Was both of which with the right mixture can bring you to tears.This album is not as immediate
as some of his other work. But as these tracks unwind themselves
and the story blooms you'll be gasping for air. Do yourself a
favor pick this up and for GOD SAKE go see them live.I hope Greg
makes albums as long as he can breathe

There are people out there listening to the radio. They want to be rescued. Long since tired of riding dirty on a honkytonk badonkadonk that makes one want to la-la, there are some that would argue that Y2K was really the day the music died. (If not even sooner, but those folks didn't like Nirvana, Alice in Chains or Soundgarden. Go figure.)

Well, anyone who's heard "Gentlemen" or "Congregation" or any other record by the Afghan Whigs should be yelling "Rescue me, Dulli!" And on "Powder Burns," Greg's delivered the goods.

Possibly the most soul-infused yet forward-thinking rock record since the Whigs' "Black Love," the new Twilight Singers record still shouldn't be construed as an Afghan Whigs album without the name. Despite Dulli wearing lead singer shoes, which definitely aids in stamping any project with a signature raspy-throated, tunelessly-endearing sound, the backing band and instrumentation are a far cry from the rabies-inflicted punk animal that was the Whigs. Sure, it's dirty, dirty, grungy blues-rock, but one might be surprised what creeps into a song here and there. "Bonnie Brae" is a melancholy headbanger that could almost be called blue-collar shoegaze. Piano and violin pepper tracks like "There's Been An Accident," while rushing, watery electronic influence is lovingly splashed here and there, most obviously on the intro piece "Toward the Waves"/"I'm Ready."

Of course to think ahead, people usually end up looking back to see how good music was made in the first place. Dulli liked smashing Beatles riffs around on his covers record so much that he's taken to purloining lyrics, too, reframing the timeless refrain of "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" with a derisive sneer and a cranky guitar din ("Forty Dollars").

Not every word on "Powder Burns" is an homage, however. Lyrically, Dulli has always struck me as a singing Charles Bukowski. Sometimes it's exactly who you need to hear from to fall asleep at night when you're too bleary-eyed to read.

I have goosebumps. Honestly. Soul and rock return. I couldn't be happier. "I'm ready" will make you want to jump up in your cube and throw your head about.. Reminiscient of 1965 (Afghan Whigs(AW)). "There's been an accident".. sounds of early Twilight Singers (TS), more mellow. "Bonnie Brae", more Afghan feel, like songs found on Gentleman (AW)... "Forty Dollars", that lovely dirty sound that makes you want your lover... I could go on and on.. Just buy with this, you won't be disappointed... Essential if you are a AW/TS fan.

I have been a fan and listener of Greg Dulli since the Afghan Whigs album "Congregation." They are a band that sounds like no other and have tapped into something fierce and emotional in me. I am a fan of pretty much everything he's recorded both in the whigs, solo and in the twilight singers. The best outing being 1965 for me, even though "Up in It" sums up the Whigs early years when they were on the Sub Pop label and is a favorite album of mine as well.
So onto Powder Burns. It is the best thing I've heard from Greg Dulli since 1965 and is well worth the purchase. It is an album that rocks, yet is moody and lyrically sublime. I couldn't recommend it enough. Especially if you have listened to and enjoyed and other Greg Dulli or Afghan Whigs projects. Run to the record store! Or purchase from Amazon or itunes!

But as you see, I gave Powder Burns a 5 star rating, because the entire album, with its swings from raw rock snarl to sultry, soft croon, is a musical treasure. Greg Dulli really can croon, sweetly, even when his lyrics are tough to swallow, as in Candy Cane Crawl and Dead To Rights. The perfect backup vocals (Ani Difranco could not be more perfect in Dulli's songs here) and lush arrangements, layered sometimes with string flourishes and acoustic guitars, are just plain gorgeous, never under or over produced. The Conversation is a quiet acoustic of this sort. Forty Dollars is electric & piano & stomping beats with a snarling vocal telling a sordid tale of Dulli's lifetime demons, which fans of his will know quite well. At the end of Forty Dollars he says he's just bein' honest, which he has always been in his music & which makes his music all the more gritty & appealingly raw. There's Been an Accident, Candy Cane Crawl, Dead to Rights and I Wish I Was (a song with a slow sexy groove and light horns in the background) show GD has only gotten better over the years. There is an interesting story behind the creating of this record, well worth looking up on the Twilight Singers website. If you are a fan of GD, which you probably are if you are reading this, you owe yourself to get this album and the story behind it.

One of the premier songwriters who always delivers a tormented musical portrait is Greg Dulli, one-time leader of the criminally overlooked Afghan Whigs and current chief of The Twilight Singers.
It's a wry album title for someone who's long battled a nose candy addiction, but Greg Dulli never ceases to turn in a staggering performance on record. Even 2004's covers album She Loves You - in hindsight an obvious stopgap while Dulli attempted to break free of drug addiction and rediscover his lyrical fire - offered an amazing retelling of divergent tracks made famous by everyone from Billie Holliday to Bjork.
My Time Has Come is The Twilight Singers' take on Sympathy For The Devil, exhibiting the danger of The Rolling Stones of the late `60s. The song conjures visuals of Dulli walking hand in hand with the Prince Of Darkness as the songwriter documents his own demise.
Where once Dulli found himself backed by soul singers and crooning his way through albums, Powder Burns finds the frontman relying more heavily on his alternative tattered style of vocal delivery. Fellow gnarled drug survivor Mark Lanegan again pops up on a Twilight Singers release, albeit in sampled form on Candy Cane Crawl, while Dulli's interest in Beatles (having previously worked on the Fab Four biopic Backbeat and performing John Lennon's Real Love) also rears its head on Forty Dollars, where he reprises their early smash She Loves You.
Recorded in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Dulli still proves to be a rogue wave in a sea of listless rock performers.

When you survey what is out there today...sure you've got bands like Spoon cranking out cute little hook-laden pop riffs that all the superficial chicks at the martini bars chatter about, you've got/had your BigHead Todd (where did they go??) and then there's the Nebraska-styled shoegazer garage grool with all it's artsy pretense...but this...THIS is truely great music in our time and only further reinforces Dulli's role as the "Sinatra" of grunge-soul.
This recording is special in that it continues the formula set in Blackberry Belle where songs slowly unfold as in some hypnotic Noir-hazed storyline (Raymond Chandler comes to mind) and in doing so provides the listener with a sense of "completeness" that is imo missing in most music today.
The layered soundtracks, contributing guest artists and "intelligently" written lyrics make me wonder how much better this can get? The new release is due out soon and I am hoping it follows the trajectory set by Blackberry Belle and Powder Burns.
Alongside Lanegan's "Whiskey for the Holy Ghost"...I consider Blackberry Belle and Powder Burns essential!

I wrote this review in May 2006 but I'm starting to lift reviews from my blog and post them on Amazon: The Twilight Singers' new record, "Powder Burns," is a revelation. Which is saying something for Greg Dulli, who is one of the most consistent songwriters in rock. The liner notes for this album, like the ones it follows, charts its recording locales with the phrase "shot on location" because Dulli's records feel cinematic...

Like an Altman film, instead of progressing, the album unravels, exploring themes of addiction, despondency, isolation, sexuality, self destruction, unhealthy codependency, and taking the dark corners of the id out for a good stretch regardless of the consequences.

In a genre which either ignores classic R&B, or injects it into the music as a hokey novelty, Dulli stands alone in his effortless, hybrid tour-de-force. It is an esthetic that owes as much to Marvin Gaye's vanguard musical and vocal arrangements from the latter years at Motown, when the album slows for quick breathers on "Candy Cane Crawl" and "Dead To Rights", as it does to the darkness of the very best Rolling Stones records. In a time of pretenders and transient flavors-of-the-month in so-called "alternative," independent music, Dulli is unique,...lasting. Ironically, this may be why a higher level of popularity and success will always elude him. The audience which will by a Twilight album but is unfamiliar with Dulli may struggle with a record which departs from the "alternative" genre's established, narrow parameters. Not very alternative, eh? But then, Gaye challenged his following with "I Want You" very much in the same way...and here I am in 2006 calling on him and it as an exemplar so...

Sounding more like Dulli's former band, the Afghan Whigs, than any of the past Twilight records, the album bristles with taut, grinding riffs which fill the background of each scene; they are a supporting cast for dark and aggressive vocals- especially on stand-outs "I'm Ready," "Bonnie Brae," and seemingly ever building "There's Been An Accident." Dulli's arrangement of "Accident" is brilliant, reaching a dramatic crescendo which captures maybe his most-passionate vocal performance ever.

And yet, I think Dulli is still developing,...improving. Why shouldn't I? Every album in his career is a testament to his progress toward a plateau of song writing in rock that many of his contemporaries will never see...they can't.
- Raindog (5.21.06)

Greg Dulli is the master of lustful, dreamy and dark rock and his new Twilight Singers endeavor, Powder Burns is a fervent roller-coaster ride. Opening with an industrial thrill, this collection of songs drips in an icy, cool and seductive vibe. Always keen on employing talented collaborators, Dulli includes exciting guest work from Joseph Arthur and Ani Difranco among others. Tinted with a graceful layer of hope and a great bit of that expected sophistication, Powder Burns smokes through haunting ballads and turbulent, bittersweet rock numbers with unshakable vigor.
Standout Tracks: "There's Been An Accident", "Dead To Rights" -Antonia Santangelo