“What Jail Is Like” by Afghan Whigs

"What Jail Is Like" sits inside Gentlemen, the Afghan Whigs' fourth album, released on Elektra in 1993, and it's Greg Dulli's all the way: the frontman wrote it, sang it, produced it and mixed it with Jeff Powell. Rick McCollum plays guitar, John Curley bass and Steve Earle drums, with Happy Chichester's piano and Barb Ruchhoft's cello deepening the gloom, and John Hampton and Powell engineered, with Jeffrey Reed assisting.

Dulli wrote the album on the road behind 1992's Congregation, the band cut most of it at Ardent Studios in Memphis, and it plays as a song cycle that tracks a poisonous relationship all the way to its end, with soul music in its bones and lyrics that bite hard. Critics have come to rate Gentlemen as the band's finest hour and one of the great breakup records.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.