An amusing aside: The Metal Archives don’t think Nashville Pussy are metal enough for inclusion but Sonata Arctica are. But there again they keep blacklisting From The Bogs Of Aughiska, too so maybe just another ‘file under clique bullshit ‘…
Aaaanyway…. Nashville Pussy. A band with a sound so bluesy and grease stained low ‘n’ dirty you kind of need a bath in Swarfega to get rid of them. I kind of lost touch with Nashville Pussy sometime after ‘Say Something Nasty’. That album was a real dip in songwriting for me (hey, bear in mind this lot have been Grammy nominated for songwriting!), and it seems that the line-up changes that started there have continued and their inability to keep hold of a bass player in particular has been a problem (excuse me while I just take a moment to miss the presence of all six foot plus of Corey Parks even after all these years….)
Nice to catch up with them, then? Fuck yeah. Husband and wife front duo of Blaine and Ruyter have their truly impressive musical hands firmly on the wheel with Up The Dosage. Hugely so. This is Southern brain fried rock/metal of the finest, nastiest, blazingly sarcastic and cynically funny attitude. Opener ‘Everybody’s Fault But Mine’ is a gut driven, slow burning entry with those great, tricky guitar licks rising and falling from the low slung riff. Blaine’s grim, embittered snarl is spot on still, his expression and attitude more than making up for any lack of range and as always the backing vocals really add colour. The rhythm section of drummer Jeremy Thompson and new woman Bonnie Buitrago on bass is a great, solid driveshaft, keeping the shape as the riff pulls out that filthy Rose Tattoo and AC/DC born in a Tennessee junk yard sound.
The best thing here though is really I just don’t know where to start with the songs here. Really. Thirteen songs on an album like this, all stripped down Southern rock gone metal is asking a tough question but, damn, there genuinely isn’t a misstep or a dull stretch anywhere. And the lyrics? Oh I coulda (maybe shoulda) just written the lot down for the review and walked away giggling. Borderline genius.
At random, take the chicken scratch guitar picking of the gloriously cynical ‘Hooray For Cocaine, Hooray For Tennesse’ or the downright nasty, dirty, desperate sparse boogie ‘Before The Drugs Wear Off’ (” I’m nearly five foot nine in my cowboy boots, I’m the only man left in the room, I’ve got it all so let’s get it on before the drugs wear off…. “). Then you have heavy riffing songs like the seriously catchy metal (yep, metal-archives.com, metal) of ‘The South’s Too Fat To Rise Again ‘ or the surging ‘Pillbilly Blues’ or the lovely guitar work on closing song ‘Pussy’s Not A Dirty Word’ which will no doubt be brilliant live.
I guess some may find some of the cynicism and humour here so close to the bone that you’ll be skinning knuckles all the way, and I doubt that they’ll ever get any cultural ambassador awards, but what the hey. The bottom line here is that you just need to dive in. Fine, you’ll come out feeling as filthy as the kind of night out that maybe you donat exactly want to remember. But that’s Nashville Pussy for you: Kinda greasy but still finger licking good…
Boogie on guys.
(8/10 Gizmo)
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