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Rating:
A Heartfelt Dive
Emotions that pierce through infinity to strike right at the soul's core, piercing, abysmal wounds that, when awakened, provoke ecstasy and torment.
In “Gentlemen,” all the most disparate sonic elements converge (Art-Rock? Allow me this small definition) that turn the songs into acts of self-flagellation of the soul, heart fragments with no master destined to shake the conscience of anyone approaching this album for the first time, sensations and flavors that remain unaltered even after numerous and varied listens, as if they imprint themselves permanently at the bottom of the soul. Listening to it gives me the idea of a submarine submerged at the bottom of the oceans, forgotten by all and then suddenly meant to resurface under the murky waters, revealing all its hidden treasures, ready to awaken and provide new energy to those who have long been asleep...
The initial notes which open the album (symbolically equivalent to a sharp cutting of the umbilical cord that kept us in the warm comfort of those who generated us) give life to these extreme sensations, an emotional charge hardly matched in the form of notes, even for a movement like Grunge, so strongly characterized by the human and desperate events of the musicians who made it famous, often ending in tragedy.
The band's stylistic and sonic evolution here reaches its natural completion, thanks to grafting onto a rough grunge bark a perfect fusion between Soul, Funky, and psychedelic elements.
The opening of “Gentlemen” with that voice so intensely expressive, legendary in its emotional surges and declarations of intent, so passionate both in its open-hearted confessions and in the orgiastic moments of pure anger and perversion, is definitely to be considered one of the rarest gems of the golden age of all the rock stars and stripes branded in the '90s.
From the riff of “If I Were Going” so deeply emotional, with Greg Dulli's voice rocking and leading us at the start of this journey, after a few disjointed moments of emptiness interspersed by the drums, the title track emerges, where the guitar riff shakes everything, followed by the singer's entrance. One of the highest moments of pathos of the entire album, these few and so intense seconds of the song connect, in my particular vision, to the birth of the individual, when the sweet notes of the first song are nothing but a preface to the start of life, “Gentlemen” is a manifesto and metaphor of the beginning of existence, so full of uncertainties and fears, but necessary to “exist” and bear witness to oneself; a fundamental vehicle over the years to mend the tears and wounds that bleed, destined to infect us inevitably inside.
This might be the ultimate sense of “Be Sweet,” another great masterpiece of the record, when just at the final part of the song Dulli says:
"So understand
Now that I come to you
To understand my little self
To understand my little self
And baby you be sweet...”
The entire album is pervaded by an insane desire to confess without hesitation, without barriers, a concept about love and its most morbid deviations, confessions that pass through the oblique and cursed riff of “Debonair,” to the heart-rending and melancholic singing of “What Jail Is Like,” to the delicate Psychedelia of “When We Two Parted”; a soft sonic scaffolding supported by the strength of the words of a wonderful and instinctive text that leads us irreversibly to abandonment, to liberating catharsis, in a crucible of emotions inexplicable in words. Only tears might attempt to explain all that traverses the soul, like a blade that sinks deep inside you, while Dulli sings in the finale:
“Out of the night we come
And into the night we go
If it starts to hurt you
Then you have to say so...”
As in the heartfelt declaration of intent of “Fountain and Fairfax,” where Dulli confessing to his love says he cannot keep the promises made and thus returns to the vortex of perversions that accompany him, to the sweet yet at the same time cruel visions of love, saturated with Soul and Blues hues of “My Curse,” enriched by the warm voice of Marcy Mays, and of “I Keep Coming Back,” and by the classic noisy and acidic Grunge of “Now You Know,” which paint a resounding and full of double meanings sound fresco, a work whose great strength lies precisely in this double ambivalence: tormented love relations, of people who have never completely understood each other, relations of people (it might even be that Dulli in these songs is actually speaking with the distorted vision of his self) living between grudges and strong passions in a continuous game of colors between the soft blue of the sky and the deep red of hell. A game of love and hate destined to prolong for eternity, without either being able to prevail over the other.
The closing of the album is entrusted to a chilling instrumental, “Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer,” indeed, it is a fitting conclusion as well as a perfect final soundtrack to the tumultuous climax of interpersonal relations described and narrated in “Gentlemen,” as if listening to these songs one were actually watching a film, not coincidentally, in the last page of the booklet instead of the classic “recorded on” there is a more appropriate “shot on location”... Never has an end been so sweet, simple and full of meanings, and, despite the album's review already being present, the urge to narrate it my way, with all the emotions and the reopening and unlocking of wounds that often come alive again during its listening (and that all of us more or less carry within our souls), was too strong.
What else to say? The Afghan Whigs are and will forever remain one of my favorite bands, one of those (among many) that has given me the most on an emotional and conceptual level. A piece of history of all American rock, the adjective that most comes to mind right now is: “Unforgettable”... Truly, one of the most “beautiful and heartfelt” albums I have ever listened to.
Chapeau.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 If I Were Going (03:05)
(Dulli)
What should I tell her?
She's going to ask
If I ignore it, it gets uncomfortable
She'll want to argue about the past
Still I think she believes me
Every word I say
I think I'm starting to believe it all myself
Go ask the gentlemen who play it
But hate to pay
And it don't bleed, and it don't breathe
It's locked its jaws & now it's swallowing
It's in our heart, it's in our heads
It's in our love, baby, it's in our bed
It holds my arms down, sits upon my chest
It waves its finger at me every night and day
And it don't rest
And it don't breathe and it don't bleed
It's locked its jaws and now it's swallowing
It's all a lie, it's nearly dead
It's in our hope, baby, it's in our bed
02 Gentlemen (03:53)
Your attention please
Now turn off the light
Your infection please
I haven't got all night
Understand
Do you understand?
Understand
I'm a gentleman
I stayed in too long
But she was the perfect fit
And we dragged it out so long this time
Started to make each other sick
But now I've got time for you
For you, you, you and me too
Well, come and get it, come and get it
Cause I'm done
Understand
Do you understand?
Understand, I'm a gentleman
I'm a gentleman
I waited for the joke
It never did arrive
And words I thought I'd smoke
Let me in I'm cold
All messed up but nowhere to go
You got indecision, and indecision is my enemy
Unlock the cabinet
I'll take whatever you got
Now I'm on it, now I'm on it
And you're done
I waited for the joke
It never did arrive
And words I thought I'd choke
I hardly recognize
03 Be Sweet (03:36)
Ladies, let me tell you about myself
I got a dick for a brain
And my brain is gonna sell my ass to you
Now I'm OK, but in time I'll find I'm stuck
Cause she wants love, and I still want to fuck
Now that I'm ashamed, it burns
But the weight is off
Now that you're out of the way
I turn and I can walk
You showed no sympathy, my love
And this was no place for you and me to walk alone
On my grave, am I OK?
I'm sure I'm not
Ladies let me tell you about my love
She kept giving me more
But it wasn't enough
So understand
Now that I come to you
To understand my little self
To understand my little self
And baby you be sweetç
Be sweet, be sweet
04 Debonair (04:14)
Hear me now and don't forget
I'm not the man my actions would suggest
A little boy, I'm tied to you
I fell apart
That's what I always do
This ain't about regret
My conscience can't be found
This time I won't repent
Somebody's going down
Feel it now and don't resist
This time the anger's better than the kiss
I must admit when so inclined
I tend to lose it than confront my mind
Cause it don't bleed and it don't breathe
It's locked its jaws and now it's swallowing
It's in our heart
It's in our head
It's in our love
Baby it's in our bed
Tonight I go to hell
For what I've done to you
This ain't about regret
It's when I tell the truth
And once again the monster speaks
Reveals his face and searches for release
A little boy is tied to you
Attracted only 'til it comes unglued
05 When We Two Parted (05:47)
(Dulli/McCollum) Baby, I see you've made yourself all sick again Didn't I do a good job of pretending? You're saying that the victim doesn't want it to end Good. I get to dress up and play the assassin again It's my favorite It's got personality I should have seen this shit coming down the hall Every night I spent in that bed with you facing the wall If I could have only once heard you scream To feel you were alive Instead of watching you abandoning yourself Baby you can open your eyes now And please allow me to present you with a clue If I inflict the pain Then baby only I can comfort you Out of the night we come And into the night we go If it starts to hurt you Then you have to say so
06 Fountain and Fairfax (04:21)
Angel, I'm sober
I got off that stuff
Just like you asked me to
Angel, come closer
So the stink of your lies
Sinks into my memory
She said baby, forever,
But I don't like to be alone
So don't stay away too long
Now baby, forever,
Well it's Tuesday now
I hear him breathing inside of her
Let me drink
Let me tie off
I'm really slobbering now
Let it stink
Let it dry up
Is it impossible how
Angel, forever
Don't you promise me
What you cannot deliver
Angel, together
I'll be waiting for you
On Fountain and Fairfax
Let me drink
Let me tie off
I'm really slobbering now
Let it stink
Let it dry up
Is it impossible how
07 What Jail Is Like (03:30)
I'll scratch my way out of the pen
Wired, an animal
The claustrophobia begins
You think I'm scared of girls
Well maybe, but I'm not afraid of you
You want to scare me then you'll cling to me no matter what I do
Tell you a secret
They shared a needle once or twice
I loved her, she loved me
We slept together a couple of times
You think I'm proud of this
Well maybe
But the shame you never lose
Infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse
And it goes down every night
This must be what jail is really like
And I will scratch my way out of this pen, again
Lonely, maybe
Or maybe not, it all depends
Your ideal, your image
Your definition of a friend
If what you're shoveling is company
Then I'd rather be alone
Resentment always goes
Much further than it was supposed to go
And it goes down every night
This must be what jail is really like
And I will scratch my way out of this pen
And I will fall back into it again
I'll warn you, if cornered
I'll scratch my way out of the pen
Wired, an animal
08 My Curse (05:46)
I flinch so when you do
Your kisses scourge me
Hyssop in your perfume
Oh, I do not fear you
And slave I only use
As a word to describe
The special way I feel for you
You look like me
And I look like no one else
We need no other
As long as we have ourselves
But I won't cry about it
Every time you get obsessed
Every time I came undressed
All ugly thoughts are gone
I'm sure we'll all be friends
I'll try to break your back
You'll try to make amends
Curse softly to me baby
And smother me in your love
Temptation comes not from hell but from above
And there's blood on my teeth
When I bite my tongue to speak
Zip me down, kiss me there
I can smile now
You won't find out ever
Hurt me baby
I flinch so when you do
Your kisses scourge me
Hyssop in your perfume
Oh I do not fear you
And slave I only use as a word to describe
The way I feel when I'm with you
If I have to lie about it everytime I came undressed
10 I Keep Coming Back (04:51)
I wanna leave you
But I just can't leave you
I keep coming back for a little more of your love
I wanna go away, but honey, I just can't stay
I keep coming back for a little more of your love
And I can't understand when try as hard as anyone can
Each night I dream I wake up and scream
Aah baby, That I love you woman I love You
Oh baby, I realise I treat you wrong
But I'm so sorry Let me come back were I belong
You see I'm your fool I lost my cool
Ah baby, that love you woman
I love you and I wouldn't lie
Oh, but I lay down and die
Oh baby, that I love you woman
Oh baby, that I love you woman
That I love you woman
I love you
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