Still mad - Greg Dulli and the Afghan Whigs

From the sound of things, Greg Dulli still hasn't given himself a break. Since the '90s, with such psyche-stirring albums as Gentlemen, the Afghan Whigs allowed Dulli to reach into the darkest recesses of the male anima. He twisted literate lyrics of overwrought emotionalism, vengeful disgust (usually involving busted romances) and seedy self-loathing into a soulful, post-punk opera of his unmerry devising.

That he shut down the Whigs only to reunite (some of) them for their first album in 16 years (2014's Do to the Beast) hasn't made him happier, just louder, with a scratchier howl, crunchier guitars, and pummeling drums. That new album, of which the Whigs played a large amount during Friday's packed-tight Union Transfer show, proved Dulli's still angry and devotees still love it.

With impeccable programming sense, Dulli told a story of fear and gloaming; a deep, long look inside his crop-haired top, starting with Beast songs like the industrial blues of "Parked Outside" and the bee-buzz metal of "Matamoros."

He moved between manic panicking menace - "If time can incinerate what I was to you/Allow me to illustrate how the hand becomes the fuse" ("Parked Outside"), then "I'll cut you down, stitch you up/You played with fire with me" ("Matamoros") - to pining stalker stuff from past albums. Accompanied by a sound track of sawing violins, striptease beats, hard-nosed guitars, and molasses-thick bass lines, Dulli imbued each lyric reading with a low, primal, scuffed-up scream or a high, cracked, bellowing croon. He had so much excess angst he howled between songs and grunted in the middle of phrases, as though expectorating demons.

On older Whigs songs like the softly raging "Fountain and Fairfax," Dulli painted a portrait of pleading ("Angel, I'm sober, I got off that stuff"). During the dramatic chord passages of "Debonair," his ramped-up anger became suddenly withdrawn and small ("I'm not the man my actions would suggest/A little boy, I'm tied to you. I fell apart. That's what I always do") as the song grew grander. Yet later-in-the-set new songs like the hard-jangling "Royal Cream," "The Lottery," and the Beatles-tinged "Lost in the Woods" found Dulli spiteful and accusatory, yelling lines like "Memories bite, baby" and "I know you're sleeping with another demon."

Man, he needs to meet somebody nice.