"How Do You Burn?" : Afghan Whigs' new release

Cincinnati soul-rockers keep the flame lit

"How Do You Burn?" is Afghan Whigs' ninth album and their first studio album in five years, since 2017’s In Spades. 

“We’re going out in style” sings Greg Dulli on this. If it was ever thus for alt-rock’s soulful lothario, How Do You Burn? finds the Whigs in particularly lusty form after Dulli’s solo sojourns.

Title unambiguous even by Whigs standards, I’ll Make You See God kicks off in the high spirit of Up In It, QOTSA-esque riff jabbing hungrily. 

Shadowed by the late Mark Lanegan’s harmonies, The Getaway summons sulphureous psychedelia, awash with nocturnal fatalism, while Jyja sees Dulli squeezing out his words like a man determined to wring every last drop from “whatever gets you through the night". 

Old collaborator Marcy Mays adds soul to Domino And Jimmy, before sultry closer In Flames sees Dulli still “looking for a good time". Now as always, his appetite for drama is not for quenching.