BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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RECORD REVIEW
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AFGHAN WHIGS
1965
Columbia; 
$16.98 CD; $10.98 cassette
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The best rock records often come out of that tension between artistic freedom and the desire for a hit. Big Star's No. 1 Record, the Beatles' Revolver, the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet and the best work of soul innovators Curtis Mayfield and Issac Hayes all walk that thin line.
Add 1965 to that short list. The Afghan Whigs' new CD is the best work the band has done. You can love them for their excesses, but here singer Greg Dulli, bassist John Curley, guitarist Rick McCollum and new drummer Michael Horrigan have the most sharply focused album of the Whigs' decade-long recording career.
Where 1996's Black Love dabbled in a film noir world where sex and murder were often indistinguishable, 1965 is more directly concerned with male-female activity.
"Something Hot," the first single, kicks off the 11-song set with a stop-start groove and Mr. Dulli's half-whispered vocals, promising "Cocktails for two, down Lover's Lane, I want you so bad, after tonight, I'll never walk the same and you're to blame." All the while, the music builds intensity, adding instruments until the chorus, when Susan Marshall's powerful backup vocals kick in and give it the final sexual charge.
"Crazy," with harmonies by ex-Big Star frontman Alex Chilton, is a recrimination of an ex-lover who sold her soul to "some ol' boy who lived uptown who could afford it."
"Uptown Again," slated as the second single, opens with swirling strings, one of the few times the Whigs' old trademark sound is heard. Indeed, the strings immediately give way to a lunging, headlong chorus that, like much of the album, sounds unstoppable.
"Citi Soleil" is a tropical, acoustic-based piece equally inspired by the Fugees and Bob Marley, with references to "a government yard" and "catch a fire," before kicking into a Stones-style chorus.
"John the Baptist" is back on familiar seductive ground. "Hey, welcome home. Got a little wine, some Marvin Gaye," Mr. Dulli offers in brief lyrical foreplay. They he gets down to business, "C'mon, take me, c'mon taste me, c'mon waste me." "I got the devil in me," he repeats as the song climaxes in a storm of trumpets and afterglow of strings.
"Neglekted" probably won't get much radio play, featuring Mr. Dulli's unexpurgated storytelling concerning "a girl, extraordinary, (who) suggested something unsanitary," as well as his warning, "You can (expletive) my body, but don't you (expletive) my mind."
"Omerta - The Vampire Lanois" dives headlong into the decadent vibe of New Orleans, where 1965 was recorded. Mr. Dulli's smoky whisper intones such lines as "Sleep is the cousin of death," and "If I'm on your mind again, (you) must be trippin' on some of the voodoo I been throwin' down."
Toss in some Beatle-esque "Yeah, yeah, yeah" choruses, "Sympathy for the Devil" congas and lyrical references to everyone from producer Daniel Lanois to rapper Nas, and Mr. Dulli's got his mojo working overtime.
Clocking in at just less than 42 minutes, 1965 is the Whigs at their tightest. That's not to say they're not as satisfyingly sloppy and as happily unsanitary as ever. That's the voodoo they do do so well.
