Twilight Singers

Powder Burns

[4/5] Album No. 4 from Greg Dulli’s other band was almost literally born in the eye of a hurricane. The tapes had to be rescued from a New Orleans studio after Hurricane Katrina hit, and the former Afghan Whigs frontman continued recording in the shattered city. Only four songs were reportedly completed after the disaster–including “Bonnie Brae,” in which Dulli keens, “Situation dire/It’s not goin’ away”–but it’s impossible not to hear the entire disc in that same urgent, elegiac light. Abandoning his past fascination with trip hop for a return to the Whigs’ soulful hard rock, a sadder and wiser Dulli is in peak form here. The crashing waves of guitars, strings and backing vocals on “There’s Been An Accident” are simply majestic, and the U2-style lament “I Wish I Was” conveys just what it means to miss New Orleans.
(ONE LITTLE INDIAN) Dan LeRoy