Referring to any band as a "great college rock band" might strike some as a backhanded compliment, as it often implies more enthusiasm than technical accomplishment. In 2004, the Whigs weren't short of either. At the time, Parker Gispert, Hank Sullivant, and Julian Dorio were enrolled at University of Georgia in Athens, the same town that spawned the quintessential college rock band, R.E.M. Like Athens' most famous sons, the unsigned Whigs separated themselves from their peers early on, courting an audience well beyond the campus gates. Their headlining shows in Atlanta were almost always packed-- and not just with weekenders from fraternity row. Watching the Whigs in those early days, it was easy to understand the appeal. The band's jangly, Southern brand of indie rock was never especially novel, but their rare combination of power and raw, naïve energy ensured that their sets were always pushed to the brink without ever spilling over.
In the Dark, the band's third full-length album, arrives in record store six years after those electrifying local shows, though it sounds several lifetimes removed. There is good reason for the difference as the Whigs are, in fact, no longer the same band. Founding member and co-songwriter Hank Sullivant parted ways with the Whigs following their first ATO effort, Mission Control. (He joined MGMT and was subsequently replaced with Tim Deaux.) It's hard to say for sure how much his loss influenced the direction of Dark or whether this album was always part of their plan. Either way, it's a dreary, dispiriting development. Dark is technically flawless but wholly sterile, like a Whigs album as conceived and executed by Hollywood session musicians on an especially short leash.
The band claims their arena tour with Kings of Leon strongly influenced Dark, and it's hard to argue on the evidence. The songs are uniformly brawny, loud, and cheaply anthemic without much variation, let alone personality. "Someone's Daughter", with its plodding jackhammer drums, could even pass for a distant cousin to "Crawl", with Gispert creepily wailing, "How could I forget that she is someone's daughter?" The Whigs have also abandoned the breezy Southern charms that characterized their early music for the geographically non-specific, leaving only vague, empty signifiers-- a hint of drawl here ("I Am For Real"), a fleeting twang there (the opening bar to "Kill Me Carolyne"). Because of this generic approach, the Whigs' rare attempts to inject some character sound even more incongruous, such as the pealing feedback that crashes the title track's bloodless alt-rock.
While the songs certainly do the Whigs no favors, the production and mixing on Dark are downright unconscionable, making one long for the relative restraint of Don Gilmore or Andy Wallace. Gispert's weathered rasp was always the Whigs' distinctive trait; throughout Dark, however, his voice is so muffled and smoothed that it barely registers. And while no one would dispute that Julian Dorio is a superb and technically gifted drummer, Dark seems designed to convince an army of imaginary skeptics, with each snare hit ratcheted up to a comically absurd level. Dark is processed to the point of pasteurization, a record that conjures images of mixing desks and vocal booths as opposed to beer-soaked stages. They may no longer be amateurs, but with Dark, the Whigs prove that professionalism has its own perils.
