As “Breaking Bad”/”Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk let slip in a tweet last Friday, the reunited Afghan Whigs are indeed releasing a brand-new studio album, with Greg Dulli and Co. announcing today that they are returning to their onetime home Sub Pop Records to release Do To The Beast, their band’s first album in 16 years.
The album is due out April 14/15 worldwide, just ahead of the band’s performances at Coachella.
No further details about the record, the band’s first since first since 1998’s 1965, have yet been released.
The group, which formed in 1986 and split amicably in 2001, recorded a pair of new songs for its 2007 compilation Unbreakable, then Dulli reunited with guitarist Rick McCollum and bassist John Curley to tour throughout 2012. The Whigs, who have been augmented by members of Dulli’s Twilight Singers, released covers of Marie “Queenie” Lyons’ “See and Don’t See” and Frank Ocean’s “Lovecrimes” that year as well.
The Whigs’ only public activity in 2013 was to perform sans McCollum at South By Southwest with Usher.
The return to Sub Pop is a reunion, too. The label, which put out the most recent Twilight Singers album, released the Whigs’ second and third albums (1990’s Up In It and 1992’s Congregation).
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Coachella 2014: The Replacements, Pet Shop Boys, Afghan Whigs, Bryan Ferry, Toy Dolls
- The Church’s Steve Kilbey, Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs double up in L.A. (Setlist, Video)
- The Church’s Steve Kilbey writing songs with Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs
- Video: Steve Kilbey joins The Afghan Whigs to perform The Church’s ‘One Day’ in Sydney
I’m eagerly awaiting a new Whigs album! I wasn’t such a big fan of their last one, 1998’s “1965,” but 1996’s “Black Love” is an all-time favorite, and Greg Dulli did some great stuff later with Twilight Singers, so I am hopeful.