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So, what exactly is a "brass city band"? "Brass City is the nickname of Waterbury, Connecticut," Valauskas reveals. "It was just a phrase that Lucky thought sounded good; he wanted to change it, but we liked the fact that it didn’t mean anything. Plus, you can’t deny that chorus. John Davis of Superdrag sings on that, and he’s a pretty big born-again Christian now. So I love it that we got him screaming ‘fuck’ on a record." By now, the band’s three songwriters have staked out separate niches, with Jackson doing the big rock anthems, Gent the more traditional pub-rockers, and Valauskas the quirkier pop things. "Mike is definitely about keeping things simple and straight-ahead," Valauskas says. "Every time I bring in a song, he’s like, ‘Why do you have so many fuckin’ chords in this?’ "

In truth, making the album was a bit less enjoyable than it sounds. Because of their various other commitments, the band stretched the sessions over a year when they’d planned to knock it out in a few weeks; they wound up adding horns and keyboards in the second round of sessions. "We put down way more shit than we wound up using on the album," Valauskas says. But making the album proved to be therapeutic for Valauskas, who had an especially crappy 2004: he developed carpal-tunnel syndrome while touring with Hatfield — "I had these burning, shooting nerve pains on every song" — and then came home to find he needed surgery when a tumor was discovered in his left eye. If you saw him on stage last fall looking as if he’d just been punched out, that was the reason, but he’s since made a full recovery. "It was a combination of music and the Red Sox winning the World Series that got me through it."

Meanwhile, the four Gents have their hands in the usual rounds of projects. Gent remains the most prolific writer, and he admits that the difference between a Figgs and a Gentlemen song often comes down to which outfit likes it better. "If a song needs two guitars, then it’s a Gentlemen song. But there’ve been times when I’d show a song to the guys in the Figgs and they’re not particularly hot on it, so I’ll see if the Gentlemen can do it. There are people who love the Gentlemen and never heard the Figgs’ records, and vice versa. My philosophy is that I like making as many records as possible — that way, maybe one of them will have a chance of getting into a store."

Gent and the Figgs recorded the next Graham Parker album over three weeks in December; though they’ve been his on-off touring band since the ’90s, this is the first time they’ve backed him on a studio album. And that’s good news for jaded Parker fans who think his folk and country albums are fine but really wish he’d get back to the old sound he had with the Rumour. Parker even penned a song called "Local Boys," an answer to his 1979 classic "Local Girls." "It doesn’t sound like any of his last few albums," Gent says. "In fact, whenever we did a rock and roll song, he’d be saying to me, ‘Think Brinsley’ [Rumour guitarist Brinsley Schwarz]. There’s some good rockers on it, a couple of Byrdsy mid-tempo things, and he loves reggae, so we cut two reggae songs. I wound up playing a ton of slide guitar; when I heard the playbacks, I was amazed at how much slide I’d done."

The bigger surprise is that Jackson, Caldes, and Valauskas are planning to reunite with Jed Parish for a new Gravel Pit album — the first in four years for a band who never formally broke up but seemed a fairly dead issue by the time Parish moved to New York last year. Says Valauskas, "We discussed it drunkenly at a Christmas party and decided it would be fun to do. I really want Jed to write a record this time, as opposed to our other albums, which were either collections of things we were playing live at the time or digging into his giant back catalogue."

But the Gentlemen plan to continue as long as it’s still fun — and by all accounts, it still is. Says Gent, "There’s always the question of, ‘Where do we want to take this thing?’ If we do a fourth record, I can see it being more acoustic, doing a Beggars Banquet–type thing." Adds Valauskas, "It’s all pretty loose. We don’t rehearse; there’s always an element of ‘We don’t really know this song but let’s see what the fuck happens.’ The thing with us is that we’ve all known each other as friends for so long that we want to see each other do well and make good music."

The Gentlemen play this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, January 20 through 22, at the Abbey Lounge, 3 Beacon Street in Inman Square; call (617) 441-9631.