The Afghan Whigs are to release their first album in 16 years, their seventh in all. Do to the Beast will come out on Sub Pop on 14 April in Europe and 15 April in UK, tying in with their slots at the Coachella Festival on 11 and 18 April.
The band, who hailed from Ohio, first came to prominence during the grunge era. However, the fact they signed to Sub Pop for their 1990 album Up In It proved to be a disappointment to some Seattle music fans, because the label was so closely associated with the music of the US Pacific northwest. "The band that was a controversial signing in our community – and nowhere else – was the Afghan Whigs, from Cincinatti, who later became qwuite a formidable band but at the time were trying to find themselves," Sub Pop founder Jonathan Poneman told the Guardian last year.
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However, the four-piece band fronted by Greg Dulli rapidly developed a fearsome repuation, both as a band and for hard living. "I was in a state that made me ashamed of myself – I just felt defeated," Dulli told Uncut magazine in 1998. "I hit the bottom. I got admitted to hospital with severe stomach pains. My brain had a condition called visceral hyperalgesia, where the seratonin in your brain ceases to function. I suffered severe nerve damage to my abdominal wall. It's like, all my pain, guilt and shame was being stored in my stomach."
The Whigs spilt in 2001, after 15 years together, but reformed in 2012 for a series of shows. Their last album was 1965, which came out in 1998.
