Last of the Country Gentlemen

In shedding his layers of pain, Pearson reveals his heart: broken and bloodied, but still beating, still fighting. We share and revere in his redemption, rarely has something so physically fragile sounded so mighty in its emotional resonance. A truly magnificent record.

Once you press play on this wonderful record, Josh T. Pearson will take you with him. It might be painful, but you will savour every tear and be thankful for the bruises. Be greatful for this dark pariah.

It's a raw and white-knuckled collection, one which captures the phenomenal emotions of the man's solo live sets.

This solo debut is as commanding: emotional trial ("Woman, When I've Raised Hell") and despair ("Country Dumb") stripped to Pearson's fraught vocals and hypnotic, irregular fingerpicking.

While no single song on the album comes close to the weight and volume that Lift to Experience was capable of slinging, Last of the Country Gentlemen delivers its own subtle intensity.

He and his demons haven't come in from the cold just yet, but thankfully, Pearson's muse has caught fire once more. [Apr 2011, p.105]

This long-rumoured debut is a thing of stark intimacy, rendered by just Pearson's rustic voice and roughly picked guitar, with an occasional smear of wintry violin or doleful piano. [Apr 2011, p.100]

Last of the Country Gentlemen is a demanding listen; its wandering pace, startling, emotionally jarring terrain of uncalculated honesty, and obsession can be uncomfortable. That said, it is a recording of surprising originality and great beauty.

Pearson's mournful growl, and the brutal honesty in raking over his personal failings, makes for a majestic, in-the-dead-of-the-night confessional.

Stark yet still overtly dramatic, it's an astonishing showcase of confessional songwriting.

Gorgeous as much as it is terrifyingly heartbreaking, it's Country Gentlemen's ominous open-ended silence that unnerves most of all.

These are stone-cold peyote visions of biblical proportions, offbeat and occasionally stunning.

To have four songs over 10 minutes on your debut is brave; when the record recalls Neil Young's sadder moments and explores the anguish of a break-up, it is foolhardy.

Pearson's crafted an auspicious opening scene to what will be a long and brilliant second act. [Feb 2011, p.67]

In the format of the double album LP, with over half the songs heading into 10-minute runtimes, he's going to take you on the scenic route through all the pain he's experienced. If only Pearson was as compelling a lyricist as any of the abovementioned figures [Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, and Townes Van Zandt], Last of the Country Gentlemen might have matched the power of his earlier work.

The violin-assisted Woman, When I Raise Hell sounds like a brilliant, disturbed relation of Bruce Springsteen's haunted Nebraska, although elsewhere, 13-minute trawls through Pearson's innermost feelings and failings, with lines such as "I'm in love with an amazing woman, she just is not my wife", make for uncomfortable listening.