I recently found a copy of the Afghan Whigs tribute album released by Summers Kiss Records. It wasn’t a great listen if only because the Afghan Whigs were such a great band that their intensity could not be readily matched by other musicians. Nor could the subversiveness of their music be recreated by others. And listening to someone else sing a Greg Dulli song just feels wrong.
But on the last track something happened. I heard a song, I’d never noticed before called Miles Iz Dead performed by a group called Zykos which was included on the Congregation album. The music is Placebo-ish. The singer keeps singing “Don’t forget the alcohol” and it sounds nothing like I sound when I remind my girlfriend of the same. Instead it’s sinister and maybe even frightening but it’s also compelling as fuck. It’s one of those covers where the covering band dug up something within the song that the original may have hidden or even lacked which is exactly what a good cover version should do.
