3 Feet High & Rising: Ancona, Italy's Gentlemens Evoke Iggy & The Stooges, The Rolling Stones & The Black Keys On HOBO-FI (Area Pirata Records)

"This album [expresses] the gathering of the band's journey across the past two years; a journey full of encounters, people, music, places, and coincidences. All [of these] adventures are permeated in the band's sound, like the memories of a tough hobo. There are hobos who ride trains [and] others ride roads. The HOBO-FI rides Rock "N" Roll from a Blues train to all the lonely Punk ways," self-described "GARAGE / LO-FI / power BLUES" Ancona, Italy-based band Gentlemens (sometimes, referred to as "The Gentlemens") wrote within a brief, albeit perfectly descriptive, emailed statement. I first spoke with Gentlemens pseudo-frontman Giordano Baldoni about a year ago, June 2015, after either I discovered them or they discovered me via Twitter; his initial email included this interesting little tidbit, "We are a little and unsigned band from Ancona (Italy), we like to play live, and our main favorite bands are the Garage bands from Detroit or... The Oblivians;" to which Baldoni added, in closing, "PS: the name of the band is absolutely ironic!" I personally feel as though Gentlemens sound something like an unholy union of The Rolling Stones, The Black Keys, Iggy & The Stooges, and Detroit native Jack White's long-defunct The White Stripes mixed with a generous dose of suave Italian Rock "N" Roll steez (fittingly defined by Urban Dictionary as, "plain old style with eaaaaze").


"THE GENTLEMENS are a swarming, mighty, Rock sound/band that reside out of Ancona, Italy. This fantastically impressive Italian rocker trio oozes nasty "movin' & groovin'" Bluesy Rock "N" Roll music zaps with huge gulps of Punk/Garage Rock charms, as well as Surf and British 60's Rock root splendours. They bring edgy, incredibly tight-sounding "shake, rattle & roll" vibes..." FORKSTER Magazine scribe Timothy John Forker wrote within a fragmented chunk of Gentlemens' on-site BIO. It quite interestingly credits members Giordano Baldoni (G.F.) and brothers Paolo Fioretti (P.F.) and Daniele Fioretti (D.F.) as all playing "GUITAR/DRUMS/VOX," which, I guess, isn't entirely unheard of... I mean, Blink-182 has always had two frontmen singing tandem vocals and The Eagles' Don Henley has always prided himself as being a singing drummer for years. Earlier this week, Giordano sent me a couple links to The Gentlemens' latest video and lead single from their upcoming album HOBO FI, "Howlin' at The Moon." It appears to have been shot at a, for lack of a better term, "seedy hole-in-the-wall" Italian club venue (which I'm sure is a very classy establishment!) Gentlemens have now partnered with independent Italian imprint, Area Pirata Records to properly release the follow-up to their 2013-15 Bandcamp-released LESS SAID, THE BETTER and UNBURIED HEAVY PILLS EP, the aforementioned HOBO-FI, which will become available on CD/LP this upcoming October 10th.