UP IN IT

Personnel: Greg Dulli (vocals); Rick McCullom (guitar); John Curley (bass, background vocals); Steve Earle (drums). Engineers: Jack Endino, Wayne Hartman, Paul Mahern. Recorded at Group Effort, Crescent Springs, Kentucky in April and September 1988; Hit City, Indianapolis, Indiana in January 1989; Reciprocal, Seattle, Washington in September 1989 and July 1990. The Afghan Whigs recorded UP IN IT, their second album, in 1990 on Seattle's soon-to-be influential independent label, Sub Pop. The album was released with two different track listings--one including the song "Now We Can Begin," the other replacing that track with "Hey Cuz" and featuring three songs from the Whigs' debut album, BIG TOP HALLOWEEN. Set to a dense musical backing--led by Rick McCollum's searing guitar--the album is a collection of travelogues through the murky waters of singer Greg Dulli's twisted mind. The standout track is "I Know Your Little Secret," which opens on a plaintive note before using the cracked steps of Dulli's ravaged voice to build itself into an insistent and genuinely threatening piece of rock & roll. While UP IN IT is perhaps not the most cohesive version of Dulli and Co.'s vision, it is a lot more emotionally credible than anything else previously associated with Sub Pop. The record is a clearly marked signpost in the Whigs' simultaneous trips to the bottom of the bottle and to the lowest possible plateau of relations between men and women.

• Genre: Pop
• Format: Vinyl
• Released: 09/22/2017