Greg Dulli has a thing about cars. In his songs with the Afghan Whigs in the 1990s and with the Twilight Singers in the 2000s, the Cincinnati-born, New Orleans-based songwriter always has a ride waiting outside. “I’ll get the car, you get the match and gasoline,” he instructs a lover on the Whigs’ “Going to Town,” promising great conflagration. On the Singers’ “Follow You Down,” he sings, “Get the wheel, let’s go for a ride. If you’re trouble, then I’ll follow you down.” That car — presumably a sinister muscle car circa ’72, painted oil-slick black and with tinted windows, growling in idle — sometimes offers salvation, but more often it’s a vehicle to damnation.
It’s a powerful metaphor, simultaneously menacing and reassuring, and it’s the first thing that connects the Afghan Whigs’ first album in 16 years with that band’s revered catalog. The opening song — one of the heaviest in Dulli’s catalog — is called “Parked Outside,” while another, “Can Rova,” includes what might be a kind of mission statement for the singer/songwriter: “Start the car, check the mirror … We leave tonight, ain’t nuthin’ but the stripes.” Dulli is taking us for a ride, showing us around the seamy underworld he has created in his music. He might crash that car, he might open the door and kick us to the curb, he might even have the cops behind him, but he will never run out of gas.
