A Modern Masterpiece

This is my first opinion for epinions.com, and I started with this album because I'm hoping to review my approximately 300 cds in alphabetic order. I give credit to Mr. La Friedmen and Mr. Andrew Hicks for such an idea.

Afghan Whigs are a great 90's band bordering between mainstream success and indie bliss, and Gentlemen is widely known as their best effort. I feel this is a great album, although not necessarily their best, but definitely an essential in a collection of people who love guitar driven 90s rock music.

The album opens with "If I Were Going", a deceptively quiet song that serves as a great opener and segway to the louder music to come. Afghan Whigs are readily noticed by Greg Dulli's characteristic lyrics and vocal styles, and while he isn't screaming in this song his lyrics have the same lovestruck arrogance that appear throughout their music. In this song he pleads "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." This is one of my favorite moments on the album, and a great way to start.

After this comes the title track, another great song perfectly placed. Here Dulli screams over wailing guitars in his recognizable straining voice. As the album continues, many of the other songs have a similar style to "Gentlemen", but much like Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, the band makes up for it with the fact that the music is quite good.

Songs like "Be Sweet" and "Debonair" contain moments of confession and alarm that fit perfectly in the record, but the next truly great moment doesn't come until the 7th song. "What Jail Is Like" is one of the finest moments in the album, Dulli is once again at his lyrical and musical best. He sneers "You think I'm scared of girls, well maybe, but I'm not afraid of you."

After hearing loud distorted guitars almost constantly between the 2nd and 7th songs, the album's unexpected climax appears out of nowhere in the 8th track. "My Curse" is my personal favorite Afghan Whigs song, a 6 minute probe into the depths of all that this band is trying to communicate. The song begins with a quiet acoustic guitar, and is sung by a woman, Marcy Mays. In the opening lines she sings "Hurt me baby, I flinch so when you do." and "I do not fear you/and slave I only use as a word to describe the special way I feel for you." After this the electric guitars kick in, but there is still piano and acoustic guitar being played, which keep the song grounded. She sings with great emotion "You look like me/I look like no one else." Finally, in a perfect moment of angst and emotion she wails "And there's blood on my teeth when i bite my tongue to speak!", a wonderful moment in the Afghan Whigs catalogue.

The album closes with "Brother Woodrow/Closing Prayer", an instrumental track that slowly brings you down from the wall of sound youve been listening to for the past hour. Overall, Gentlemen is a great album filled with many great moments, definitely something i would consider to be an essential piece in most people's music collection. If you like this album i would recommend Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins or Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin.