SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN ~ Double Your Pleasure Leviathan Records

Southern Gentlemen release their second outing with “Double Your Pleasure.” For those unfamiliar with the “Gentlemen,” they are a blues outfit from the backwoods of Georgia known for their tantalizing covers and ball-to-the-wall blues-rock blues. Within their song arrangements are elements of ZZ Top, Robin Trower and Allman Brothers, essentially blues riffs delivered with metal precision.

The key difference between last years “Exotic Dancer Blues” and “Double Your Pleasure” is the weight. This time around the band are a little heavier with more lead guitar playing. “Racing Back To Mississippi” is the first track to dig its meaty hooks under your skin. A great cruising song with lots of revved up muscle that works well for driving or other “high energy” endeavors. Band guitarist David Chastain comments, “Actually ‘Double Your Pleasure’ was never intended to be a Southern Gentlemen CD. I recorded these and a few other songs as the second Georgia Blues Dawgs CD (Chastain’s other blues band). I had a whole other SG album written and ready to record. However, I just went in one day and added heavy guitars over the Georgia Blues Dawgs CD and it sounded really good so I decided to also release the heavy version as Southern Gentlemen.”

Chastain also tells us that SG’s trademark will always be to have a sexy woman on the cover. Most of their lyrical content is love, sex, and heartbreak driven as heard in the cool riff of “Tell Me Woman,” “Not Worth My Grave” and “Love Affair Gone Bad”. The songs are rich and full of Chastain’s classic edge. The utltimate tribute to the ban’s sex drive must be “Slutovirgin.” Says Chastain, “Very seldom do I write about specific people but a generalization of many. I have just known women in the past who would basically do any and everything imaginable except normal sexual intercourse and then try to parade herself around as a ‘virgin’. While technically true, she had still blown half the town.”

The more commercial slant and melodic edge on the disc happen with “I Believe In Love” and “Tell Me Woman.” Thought the songs were reworked for this recording the emotion is unmistakable and genuine. “In Southern Gentlemen I always wanted to present the band as it would sound live,” says Chastain. “Almost no overdubs. Usually one guitar, one bass, drums and one vocal track - as if in a packed, smoked fill nightclub on a Saturday night. The band is cooking and you are trying to figure out which hot chick you wanted to take home tonight.”


Website: Leviathan Records

Review by Todd Smith om http://www.thecutting-edge.net/