Uptown Avondale

by

The Afghan Whigs

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This EP, their last recording for the label Sub Pop, is comprised of four classic R&B covers, plus a remix of their "hidden" track from the album Congregation (called "Milez is Dead" there, "Rebirth of the Cool" here).

The EP opens with the sizzling "Band of Gold," the classic Freda Payne tune. The Whigs have a tendency to redo all of their covers in a minor key, and this fact, accompanied by the howl of Greg Dulli and Rick McCollum's guitars, make this unforgetable. "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road" is absolutely haunting, turning the Elvis Presley song into a melancholy- bordering on morose- piece. The cornerstone of the EP, though, is the cover of the Supremes' "Come See About Me." I can't really describe it, but it's one of the few covers which I think is on par with the original (which is an excellent song to begin with).

The album begins to wind down with Al Green's "Beware," a great, if slightly haphazard tune. This track immediately heads into the only real downside to Uptown Avondale: the remix of "Rebirth of the Cool." It drags on much too long (a problem plaguing the original), and the percussive dance beats and vocal shifting downplay the rage embodied in the original.

Uptown Avondale is a great collection of covers, and one fairly decent remix. This is an excellent recording of the Whigs paying homage to the R&B roots they embraced.

It's hard to pin down a band like Afghan Whigs. They sort of straddle the line between grunge and sleazy 70s funk...a strange mixture indeed. "Gentlemen" was an album I bought five years ago and i'm just now starting to understand its greatness (I shelved it for a few years, sort of forgetting about it, until just recently). Greg Dulli is some sort of psychotic ladies man, and I initially dismissed his psychosexual persona as pretentious posturing, but if you look at it with a touch of black humor it's pretty entertaining. The music is blistering, loud, and funky. Sort of like The Ohio Players go to hell with Kurt Cobain.

Anyhoo...this EP (originally from 1992) is pretty good. Their spooky cover of "Band of Gold" is wonderful, as is the lonely, lovely "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road." The "Rebirth of the Cool" remix is okay, but it's sort of paint-by-numbers. Nothing special. All in all, a fairly decent intro to the Whigs, but get the full-length stuff too. Especially "Gentlemen."