Greg Dulli has a thing about cars. In his songs with the Afghan Whigs in the 1990s and with the Twilight Singers in the 2000s, the Cincinnati-born, New Orleans-based songwriter always has a ride waiting outside. “I’ll get the car, you get the match and gasoline,” he instructs a lover on the Whigs’ “Going to Town,” promising great conflagration. On the Singers’ “Follow You Down,” he sings, “Get the wheel, let’s go for a ride. If you’re trouble, then I’ll follow you down.” That car — presumably a sinister muscle car circa ’72, painted oil-slick black and with tinted windows, growling in idle — sometimes offers salvation, but more often it’s a vehicle to damnation. It’s a powerful metaphor, simultaneously menacing and reassuring, and it’s the first thing that connects the Afghan Whigs’ first album in 16 years with that band’s revered catalog. The opening song — one of the heaviest in Dulli’s catalog — is called “Parked Outside,” while another, “Can Rova,” includes what might be a kind of mission statement for the singer/songwriter: …