The Afghan Whigs's 'Soft Control' Is a Late-Career Record With No Interest in Acting Its Age
Soft Control was recorded in four rooms across the country — Fireside Sound in Joshua Tree, Marigny Studios in New Orleans, Gold Diggers Sound in East Hollywood, and Sycamore in Cincinnati, which is the band’s hometown and not an accident. Out August 21st on Royal Cream via BMG, it’s a ten-song record from a group thirty-plus years into a career, and the striking thing about its reception is the absence of dissent: across eight collected reviews, not one scores it below 70.
Track Highlights
⚡ “Jungle Roux” — the opener, and it sets the register: soul architecture with the menace still bolted on.
🌈 “Mariah Luster” and “Memphis, Texas” — the middle stretch where the record’s Southern pull is most obvious, and where Petra Haden’s presence pays off.
⚡ “The Deepest Part of the Darkest Shadow” — the title is pure Dulli and so is the song.
🌈 “A Simulation” — a six-minute closer, the longest thing here, and the one that justifies the sequencing of everything before it.
Why It’s Certified
Patrick Keeler — of The Raconteurs, and a former Afghan Whigs drummer himself — plays on the record, as does Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket. But the animating fact is Greg Dulli’s own account of where he’s standing now: “I’ve worked hard on my inner peace. I was an angry young man, and it fueled my art, ambition and my drive. I wouldn’t change anything because I can’t.”
That could easily have produced a mellow record. It didn’t. The Fire Note’s Christopher Anthony, scoring it 4.5 out of 5, wrote that Soft Control “turns soul, menace, and reflection into one of the strongest late career records The Afghan Whigs have made” — and went further, calling it the best record they’ve made in twenty-eight years. The Fire Note also credits Dulli as producer, which no other source we found confirms, so hold that one loosely. Hold the rest tightly. Certified great.