The Twilight Singers
Powder Burns

THE REVIEW

Night music, from a '90s thriller-police setting, all the class of jazz, all the touch of soul, all the energetic impetus of rock, and a great sound investigator: Mr. Greg Dulli. 

It was to be expected from a charismatic character like the Italian-American Greg Dulli, such an album of high lyrical and sound depth. Having abandoned those early Afghan Wighs sounds and having developed the "1965" sounds, our dear singer and guitarist ventures, after a series of albums under the Twilight Singers, to produce what turns out to be the most influenced and worked album of his career.

In Powder Burns you feel the nocturnal atmosphere and you smell the asphalt of the road, you hear the noise of lovers hidden in buildings covering the shady traffic of dealers and criminals that Dulli, like a metropolitan minstrel of our century, narrates with his touch of genius and madness from being well-informed.
The songs, almost all on love themes (both sentimental and carnal), on drug stories, crime, and personal reflection, are tied with a common thread that guides us through the skyline featured on the album cover. The arrangement of the songs is descending, starting from a powerful and bewildering incipit, ending with a melancholic jazzy piece that bids us farewell. This descending, however, is not to be understood in a qualitative sense, because each song plays its fundamental role within the album, decorating it in every meticulous stylistic detail.

Note the citation that Dulli makes echoing the Beatles in Forty Dollars singing: "She Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah" instead of the usual chorus.

Featured on the album are prominent personalities in the Adult-Oriented-Indie scene like Ani Di Franco, Joseph Arthur even though Dulli's old friend, who has been OMNIPRESENT in his recent productions, is absent: Mark Lanegan.
But there is no need to worry, the deep-voiced singer is fished out in the group's new EP "A Stitch in Time" where he performs a cover of John Martyn's piece "Live with me".

Curiosity: I managed to see them in concert in Rome at the Circolo degli Artisti and I can say they have the same power you find in their CDs. Dulli is a great character (both physically and in terms of personality) and doesn't miss any luxury on stage (he even had a whiskey holder and an ashtray attached to the microphone stand....)
They played about twenty pieces from their repertoire, including some pieces by Lanegan who, on stage, was immobile and very cold but was adored like a god by the audience as soon as he calmly pronounced a "Fuck You" with his heavy smoker's voice before starting to sing.

Powder Burns has become one of my most listened-to albums. And to think I bought it as soon as it came out, not knowing who the group was, and without ever having listened to a piece by the Afghan Wighs.
Listeners, you who know more than I do, will immediately appreciate such a masterpiece.
And with this, I conclude.