The Afghan Whigs Gentlemen Review at 30
Gentlemen, the major label debut album from Cincinnati alternative rock legends, The Afghan Whigs was released 30 years ago today. Having a band from my hometown sign to the same label as Mötley Crüe, 10,000 Maniacs, The Cure, and The Doors seemed like a big deal. Here was a band I grew up seeing in tiny smoke-filled clubs on Short Vine near the University of Cincinnati showing up on MTV, Late Night with David Letterman, and on the radio (sure, on 97X which played them since go, but still).
Gentlemen solidified the band’s maturity from a club band to a national recording artist. Big Top Halloween and Up In It were great records but were raw, unpolished, almost unrefined punk records. Congregation was a bridge between the two eras, a more refined sound with throwbacks to the edgy, raw sound of their earlier releases. Gentlemen was produced by Greg Dull at Ultrasuede Studios in Cincinnati and sounds polished, unique, professional, mature, and beautiful. Everyone gets their chance to shine in the mix. From John Curley’s bass on the title track, to Rick McCollum’s meandering lead on the back end of When We Two Parted, to Steve Earle’s pounding, almost tribal-sounding drum beat on Fountain and Fairfax the album sounds absolutely incredible. Mr. Dulli’s voice of course is nested in the mix perfectly, his rich baritone and guttural screams are given a wide berth to shine through the record.
Most people outside of Cincinnati know this band from the song Debonair which received some regular rotation airplay on MTV outside of 120 Minutes. I vividly recall seeing it after class one day at around 4:30 and thinking, “Woah, the boys made it”. Honestly, it’s not a bad place to start. Each member’s unique signature sound is represented here. With Curley’s slithering bass and Dulli’s quiet, loud, scream vocal path on brilliant display here.
But, of course, the album is so much more than Debonair. As with any Whigs album, Gentlemen is a treatise on love lost, regret, despair, sex, forlorn desire, and yearning. Imagine any teenage Gen X boy’s journal but much darker, more coherent, and brilliant. Even if we hadn’t yet felt heartbreak, desire, yearning, or despair at the levels on display here, we felt the angst, we felt the burning and Greg’s lyrics and vocal delivery amplified every emotion we were feeling. And it left you scarred. I recall sobbing uncontrollably during a live performance of When We Two Parted in 2012, a point in my life where I was a grown man, a happily married father of two, literally obliterated by a then 19-year-old song.
The brilliance of Gentlemen lies in the journey. These songs take you to certain moments in your life. Your first kiss. Your first breakup. The first time you felt yearning. The first time you felt despair. Your first apartment. The highs and lows of your first love. Music like this allows you to go to dark places and release those emotions. An Afghan Whigs record is the soundtrack to a movie that was never made, an Afghan Whigs concert a church revival of a religion you actually believe in. And in 48 minutes across 11 songs Gentlemen represents all of these things.
While the tones are dark, the emotions raw, and definitely on the sleeve, this is still a rock record. On Fountain and Fairfax and What Jail is Like in particular, the band goes all out, with heavy, crunchy guitars and screaming vocals that are totally unhinged and off the rails. The title track and Debonair are also guitar-forward tracks that are at home next to any rock song on alternative or rock radio. Even the more tender songs like When We Two Parted and My Curse (featuring a haunting vocal from Marcy Mays) still have heavy parts built around the emotional, building melodies.
I always wonder why this isn’t the biggest band in the world. Everyone has that band they want to shout about from the rooftops, the band you want to grab people by the shoulders and shake until they get it. But at the same time, I adore having this band almost to myself. Talking about them online or enjoying a show with like-minded fans, fans that are so passionate and I tune with what the band is saying, is something else. These are more than rock stars to me, they are teachers and preachers, cooler older brothers, poets and artists, and Gentleman is one of the canonical ancient texts from which they preach.
While Black Love has my heart and soul, Gentlemen is a close second, an incredibly important record in the Rich Richmond timeline. I was a much different person at 20 than I am at 50, but Gentlemen is still the same record at 30 as it was at launch, an emotionally draining, hard-driving, timeless alternative rock album that feels as genuine and relevant today as it did in 1993.
