NASHVILLE PUSSY: Get Some! (Spitfire)
By Fizz
Rating: 9.0
America’s ambassadors to the White Trash Nation are back! It’s been three long years, but Nashville Pussy have finally favored us with their fourth album, featuring their fourth bass-player, and released by their fourth record label. The band has certainly come a long way from their 1998 meth-punk debut Let Them Eat Pussy (graphic title, even more graphic artwork), a record almost entirely bereft of melody or discernible hooks. For some reason, people kept describing that album as a hybrid of AC/DC and Lynyrd Skynyrd, when in actuality it bore little resemblance to either band. And yet a strange thing happened. With each successive release, Nashville Pussy has grown to sound more and more like that description.
This is not to say that Nashville Pussy comes off as a ripoff or retread of either band, or any other for that matter. They definitely have their own sound developed. The best way to describe it might be this: on the band’s website, singer/guitarist/lyricist Blaine Cartwright has listed his top ten favorite albums. If you took all ten of them (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Ramones, Devil Dogs—all right, maybe not the Al Green) into a blender, along with Cartwright’s previous band, hardcore/bluegrass cult heroes Nine Pound Hammer, and you have an inkling of what Nashville Pussy is about. And they keep getting better with each album, until today, when we can enjoy this smoking, greasy slab of prime-cut raunch ’n’ roll. Get Some! may well be the band’s best album to date. Similar in overall style to the previous two releases, yet it feels more complete than 2000’s all-too-brief High As Hell, but without the filler that junked up the latter half of 2002’s Say Something Nasty. Best of all, Get Some! boasts the most hooks of any NP release yet.
The fun begins with “Pussy Time,” an obvious “theme song”-type track that I’m sure is a big live favorite. The band really tries to capture a live-in-the-studio feel for the song, with lots of spontaneous shouting at an imaginary audience. The overall effect is a bit lost though, as if they’re trying to hard to make the song translate to the studio. Still a fun, adrenaline-packed listen though. The album really gets going with the second track, the insanely catchy “Come On Come On,” with its relentless chant of “Fuck yeah!” that you’ll be wanting to sing along with all day. Even an oddly-placed guitar solo can’t spoil the effect.
A bit later, two instant Pussy classics (and two of my personal favorites) appear in the form of “Good Night For A Heart Attack” and “Hate And Whiskey.” “Heart Attack” is a fast-boogieing delight perfect for tear-assing down the backroads, looking for trouble, like Molly Hatchet on crank. “Hate And Whiskey” is slower, and contains the closest thing to a vocal melody as Blaine Cartwright will ever wrap his cigarette-ruined Kentucky drawl around, as he tells a gloomy tale of rural inertia: “I come from down in some deadhearted town, where there’s nothin’ to do and nothin’ cool around.” It could be the same character singing in “Lazy White Boy,” only this time he’s happy about his situation.
The band harkens back to its earlier, punkier sound just a bit on a couple of songs, as they do on every album. I’m pleased to report that “Raisin’ Hell Again” is adequate, and “Hell Ain’t What It Used To Be” is downright great. Neither sounds out of place, the way “Piece of Ass” or “Let’s Get the Hell Out Of Here” might have on previous albums.
Probably the most AC/DC-like song on the album would be the cautionary “One Way Down.” The thing I find most striking about this song, however, is the lyrical content. Nashville Pussy spend most of their albums merrily spinning yarns of destruction and debauchery. Yet here they are, offering stern advice to get your shit together: “You’ve had lots of warnings, but here’s one more, you probably will ignore.” “Meaner Than My Mama” is similar in sound, but this time the lyrics are back on familiar territory: trashy women. And then there’s “Atlanta’s Still Burning,” a loving send-up of the band’s adopted hometown. For some reason, I can picture this jaunty, loping track being used in tourism campaigns for that fair city. (Right, Fizzy, in your dreams!)
Of course, no Nashville Pussy album would be complete without a cover song or two. In this area, the band has usually been sort of “all or nothing.” Their version of Rose Tattoo’s “Rock ’n’ Roll Outlaw” 9from High As Hell) was excellent, but an attempt at Rick Derringer’s “Rock ’n’ Roll Hoochie Coo” (from Say Something Nasty) seemed somehow lacking. And let’s not forget their speed-freak reworking of Smokey Robinson’s pimp anthem “First I Look At The Purse” (from LTEP). This time around, the band offers up two remakes. The cocaine-blues of Ace Frehley’s “Snowblind” is all right, I guess, and does have a good double-speed solo section, but is probably the weakest track on here. Conversely, the rowdy rendition of “Nutbush City Limits,” originally done by Ike and Tina Turner (you read right—-Blaine’s a big fan) is one of the best, and stands as one of the Pussy’s best cover tunes. “Better watch out for the po-lice,” Blaine drawls repeatedly, drumming it into your head.
The production on Get Some! (courtesy of Daniel Rey of Ramones fame) is a bit up and down. I mean, it’s all done well, but you can hear slight differences in volume and drum tone and the like from song to song. Musically, however, the band continues to improve and make subtle adjustments to their sound. Most noticeable are Blaine’s vocals, which were little more than an atonal holler on the debut, have been refined (although I use the word loosely) to the point where he can, in fact, carry a tune in a paper poke with handles. Improvement can likewise be heard in the guitar-slinging of his lovely wife, Ruyter Suys. Some people like to talk about her like she’s the trailer-park Malmsteen, which she isn’t. Her playing is sloppy, but now purposely so, and her solos are some on Get Some! are some of her best yet (“Goin’ Down Swinging,” “Hate and Whiskey.” Together with her hubby, you’ve got yourself one gleefully twanging guitar tandem. Jeremy “Remo” Thompson continues to pound away at the drums in fine fashion, and who cares about bassist Karen Exley (formerly of Hemi-Cuda)? I’m betting by the time album number five arrives, she’ll be replaced with some other four-string looker.
I want to take a moment to talk about the band’s lyrics. Nashville Pussy has always been lyrically similar to American Dog, but NP like to take it to extremes. They’ve always tried to squeeze in every Jerry Springer and Dukes of Hazzard cliché and southern stereotype possible into their songs, and they see no reason to change things here. There’s nothing on Get Some! that can top the cuckold’s murder ballad “Go To Hell” (from High As Hell), but the sardonic sense of humor , dating back to Blaine’s days in Nine Pound Hammer, is still fully intact. Now, you either get it, or you don’t. There are those of us who recognize the intentional campiness and are in on the joke, and there are those of us whose knowledge of life past the city-limits sign begins and ends with the movie Deliverance. The first group takes the lyrics for what they are—-satirical, over-the-top, and, okay, maybe with a grain of truth (but NO IRONY!)-—and the second group takes them literally, as a reinforcement of every rural nightmare they’ve ever woken up screaming and flailing from. You’ll probably enjoy the music more if you’re a member of the first group, but if not, hey, have fun!
As I mentioned before, I’ve been a fan of Nashville Pussy’s almost from the beginning, and I own all their albums, and can thus make educated comparisons. TO me, Get Some! combines the best elements of the previous two releases. It has the “more rock, less punk” feel of Say Something Nasty, and the compactness of High As Hell, although, thankfully, it’s not as short. And it adds in an extra helping of hooks for good measure, and ultimately comes out better than either of those two fine records.
Best songs: “Good Night For A Heart Attack,” “Hate And Whiskey,” “Nutbush City Limits”
Worst song: “Snowblind”
11/18/05
