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Feb 12, 2015 Issue #52 - January/February 2015 - St. Vincent By Frank Valish

Originally released in 1993, Gentlemen is arguably the best album in The Afghan Whigs’ catalog. Bursting with tension and release, emotional weight, fear, regret, disgust, shame, and masochistic self-examination, the album separated itself from all other albums of the era with its soulful honesty and brutal, sadistic sickness. As a whole, the musical backdrop propels frontman Greg Dulli’s twisted vision into a fireball of intensity driven by John Curley’s thumping bass, Steve Earle’s powerful drums, and Rick McCollum’s masterful guitar, capable of shifting from swirling ethereal to blistering rageful in an instant. This reissue augments the original album with a disc of demos, B-sides, and live tracks, but apart from Dulli singing a rough demo of “My Curse,” which was so marvelously rendered by Marcy Mays on the album proper, most of the extras here are inessential and pale in comparison to the original album. Still, Gentlemen is every bit as relevant today as it ever was and stands up better than the lion’s share of its contemporaries. (www.theafghanwhigs.com)

Author rating: 9/10