The Twilight Singers -- She Loves You

7/10

I'm not entirely sure how The Twilight Singers' cover album, She Loves You, ended up in my collection. I first experienced the music of frontman, Greg Dulli, from a 2005 episode of Rescue Me. That track, "Pussywillow," wasn't even a Twilight Sisters song, but something solo-released. I don't have that solo album, or any albums of original music by the Twilight Singers. I don't even have an Afghan Whigs album--Afghan Whigs being Dulli's main gig, and claim to fame. For some reason, I only have She Loves You.
Cover albums, by their nature, are often a mixed bag. Between the difficulty in not only choosing songs, but in how to interpret them, it's pretty difficult to create a cohesive sounding work. The first thing apparent here is that Dulli has immaculate taste. Hope Sandoval? Billie Holiday? Marvin Gaye? Björk? Apparently, Mr. Dulli and I like the same stuff. While these musical choices might seem incongruent, Dulli, through the strength of his voice and a consistent, gritty rock sound, is able to make She Loves You cohesive. Dulli may not have the most polished vocals, but there's a strange power, a gritty, bruised, mysterious sexiness to them, which works in different ways throughout the album. 

Dulli throws the gauntlet down on track three by even having the nerve to cover such a unique and alien artist as Björk. Somehow, though, he not only stays true to the spirit of the song, "Hyperballad" (my favorite Björk song, natch), but makes it his own, creating a coccoon of safety out of layer-upon-layer of humming, distorted guitar, and wave upon wave of group vocals. I can't believe how well he does the song justice. However, immediately after this, he covers Holiday's "Strange Fruit," recontextualizing the song with a new angle of menace, as Dulli, a white male vocalist, sings about horrific acts carried out by white males against African Americans, through a genre white males initially appropriated from African Americans. Again, the cover shouldn't work, but it does, while also highlighting and doing justice to the power of Holiday's original.
The album continues to do things that shouldn't work, and finds success again and again. The center does sag a little, but Dulli picks things up again in a building climax of John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," Gaye's "Please Stay (Once You Go Away)," and exploding in a cathartic rendition of the traditional, "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair."
She Loves You is a solid cover album containing some stunning moments. I'm glad to have it in my collection. I need to check out more of Dulli's work. Here's a live version of "Hyperballad" that's a little more rocking and less layered than the album version, but which kind of proves the point of this album in its first 30 seconds.


2004 One Little Indian
1. Feeling of Gaze (originally by Hope Sandoval) 2:21
2. Too Tough to Die (originally by Martina Topley-Bird) 4:02
3. Hyperballad (originally by Björk) 4:56
4. Strange Fruit (originally by Billie Holiday) 3:29
5. What Makes You Think You're the One (originally by Lindsey Buckingham) 3:46
6. Real Love (originally by Mary J. Blige) 4:25
7. Hard Time Killing Floor (originally by Skip James) 3:15
8. A Love Supreme (originally by John Coltrane) 2:03
9. Please Stay (Once You Go Away) (originally by Marvin Gaye) 4:03
10. Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair (traditional, arrangement by Greg Dulli) 4:25
11. Summertime (originally by George Gershwin) 2:54