Afghan Whigs
"Black Love"

"How far is it from eternal life? I am your slave. Thank you very much. We will not forget you, my dear." With this bizarre macaronic Italian, "Black Love," the fifth work by the Afghan Whigs, comes to an end. It's a hybrid halfway between a classic album and a concept album. Specifically, the leader Greg Dulli (the sole author of the album) was initially struck by the idea of writing a screenplay for a hypothetical noir film that was never realized. The remnants of this idea provided fuel for the inspiration of these eleven tracks, balanced between rock tinged with soul and reminiscences of early post-punk, with Rick McCollum's guitar rarely grinding garage riffs ("Honky's Ladder," the first single, is perhaps the most anchored episode to the past). The plot, although rough, starts from a murder of a white person possibly committed by a black man ("Black Love"?), who flees accompanied by the woman he loves (white) towards a bitter and melancholic ending, true to the classic noir style. Guns, kisses, cops, sex, revenge, repentance, and finally death are all topics that fit well with the group's dark, vicious, and contradictory spirit. "Where there is truth, there is always a lie," they seem to say, for instance, in the opening "Crime Scene Part One," which starts the album with a slow profusion of organs and effects in crescendo, while "every secret has its price" to be paid even with death. A black cloak envelops every track, although in the ballads there is a light of hope as in "Step Into The Light" and especially in the wrenching litany of "Night By Candlelight," made even more enchanting by the extraordinary voice of Shawn Smith, an underrated and underappreciated singer from the ashes of the Seattle grunge era (see bands like Satchel and Brad). If the clouds in the sound horizon of "Black Love" never clear, it is in the final quarter-hour that everything said so far is sublimated. In sequence, "Bulletproof," "Summer's Kiss," and "Faded" strike straight to the heart and plunge into the flesh seamlessly in a long suite on the torment of love. The guitars escape, chased by the piano keys, and the singer's cries sound like an unanswered plea for help. In this state of emotional confusion, "Faded" finally arrives: I don't know if it's the melody to be eternally grateful for, its emotional growth inside those who listen through the years and experiences, or the simple magic of music, but in these last eight minutes everything settles, the good and the bad, and you remain frozen in a polaroid with everything you carry along.