Watch The New Afghan Whigs' Video For 'Matamoros'

The Afghan Whigs are cool and they want to prove it to you one more time. Their video for their song ‘Matamoros from their new album ‘Do to the Beast’, just premiered on the Guardian and the clip couldn’t target a younger and more rebellious audience than it does. You will not see Greg Dulli’s face or any of the Afghan Whigs, but rather young hip hop/street dancers doing their thing in the subway,… it must be a very New York thing because nobody takes the subway in LA.

As a matter of fact, Gawker is reporting that this kind of subway entertainment is totally illegal and that mayor Bill de Blasio and police commissioner Bill Bratton are cracking down on subway acrobat dancers; as a result, 240 people have been arrested so far this year! So it makes total sense that Dulli and his band have chosen this outlaw kids as the subject of their video, The Afghan Whigs even look a bit dangerous, rebellious, super cool, plus this was unexpected.

The song, which navigates between threat and seduction, is quite catchy, and its chorus with Greg Dulli’s falsetto over a sort of Michael Jackson/R&B funky tempo, makes it very danceable. If I remember correctly their video for ‘Algeirs’ was a sort of spaghetti western, so here we go for diversity. I have been a casual Whigs’ fan but I have seen them live once and Greg Dulli is the hell of a frontman. This is what he said back in April about the song ‘Matamoros’:

‘We did this one in Cincinnati while my friend Manuel Agnelli [of Afterhours] was visiting from Italy. When he showed up I didn’t see him come in – I was busy beatboxing in the studio. Afterwards he said ‘That was crazy, it sounded like you were saying “do to the beast what you do to the bush.”’ I remember looking at John Curley and I’m like ‘Man, I think he just named the record.’ Later, he told us this story about going to Mexico and meeting this man from Matamoros who got sick while travelling with his girlfriend. She developed her film from the trip and the dude looked like a demon. I thought ‘Wow, well, Manuel named the album and the second song.’ He did that all within the first ten minutes of arriving. So hats off to Manuel. ‘

Demon? May be this explains why the dancers have skull make-up at one point. ‘Do to the Beast’ is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half and they are on tour right now: