Nashville Pussy - Ten Years Of Pussy

Nashville Pussy - Ten Years Of Pussy
Released by: SPV/Steamhammer
Released on: May 12th, 2015.
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"If there's ever been a better band to open for Motorhead, I've not heard them!"---Lemmy

Nashville Pussy don't come from Nashville, they come from Atlanta and they've been around a lot longer than ten years, but this new compilation focuses not on their early stuff but instead compiles what the band considers to be the best of their more recent albums, the last three albums that they've recorded for SPV - Get Some!, From Hell To Texas, and last year's Up The Dosage. Anchored by the husband and wife team of Blaine Cartwright on guitars and vocals and Ruyter Suys on guitar and now featuring Bonnie Buitrago on bass and Jeremy Thompson drums, the band have stayed pretty consistent with their dirty, skuzzy sound, and that's a very good thing. And is that cover an homage to Ted Nugent? It damn sure looks like it.

The disc starts off with Come On Come On, guitars upfront as they should be with a wailing scream setting the mood for what's to come. This is southern rock played fast, loud and dirty with some great harmonies on the chorus and some catch as Hell guitar riffs. Pretty much the consummate Nashville Pussy song with the anthemic 'c'mon, c'mon, c'mon fuck yeah' chorus going on. It'll get your foot tapping and your ass shaking in no time.

Rub It To Death is fast, punk rock number from Up The Dosage. The press release for that album compared it to Motorhead and while usually stuff like that is a load of bullshit, this time it's pretty accurate. It's a full speed ahead number with slick guitars up front in the mix and a really pounding bass and drum combo anchoring it all. I'm So High sees the band collaborating with one of Canada's finest sons, Danko Jones. It is, as you could guess, a song about being high. A lot of Nashville Pussy songs are, so they're not really reinventing the wheel here, but that almost doesn't matter because hearing Danko and Cartwright sing together on this track is nothing short of ballsy, dirty, rock'n'roll greatness. 'I'm gonna get wasted in the stratosphere and take a shit on the moon!'

Going Down Swinging is just short of two and a half minutes of punch-drunk rawk. It's a tough song about being a tough guy and doing tough guy stuff. It's fast, fairly raw and fairly glorious in its own simplistic way. Before The Drugs Wear Off starts off slowly with an acoustic guitar riff under Blaine's vocals. This one is a dirty blues number about having sex with a drug using pregnant chick and it's fucking great. We get the female backing vocals in the background helping it to build and some fun guitar noodling that prove that, yeah, these guys and gals can play. This is, hands down, the catchiest song on the album and it sounds more like a Waylon Jennings/ZZ Top collaboration than anything all that heavy - but it works and it works well. 'Well you're meaner than shit, hotter than hell, ten months pregnant and you' can't even tell - you've got it all, so let's get it on, before the drugs wear off.' Sheer poetry.

Hate And Whisky is all about the trials and tribulations of coming from nowhere and amounting to nothing, the kind of upbringing that might turn you towards the song's subject matter. It's definitely a southern thing and while it's on the slower side of the spectrum as far as the band's sound is concerned, it's not less raunchy. The band's sense of humor is obvious throughout their discography but rarely as obviously as on the track The South's Too Fat To Rise Again. One of the fastest tracks on the album, this once again channels the Motorhead influence but throws in some Turbonegro with the vocal harmonies and slightly more melodic guitar work. This could have come right off of Apocalypse Dudes and that's about as lofty a compliment as you can pay to a track like this.

Pussy Time is a party song if ever there was one, a celebration of snatch and or maybe a ballad of bush if you prefer. It's all about getting laid and having a good time - if you've got the pussy, we've got the time, baby! Till The Meat Falls Off The Bone brings the sleaze that the band is none for to the front and while the guitar riffs start slowly with Blaine's vocals up higher and more prominent in the mix, that starts to change as the groove sets in and this one turns into a sludgy sort of groove track (that'd made more sense if you heard it). Pillbilly Blues, a guitar heavy track that once again shows the influence of early AC/DC in the musicianship. The drums are faster here than anywhere else on the album and damn it all, there are spots where the band seems to be bringing in a Charlie Daniels Band influence as Blaine rambles on about hard luck times and the key to excess. Cartwright's scream at the end of this track is amazing.

Why Why Why is kind of like a Judas Priest song filtered through… no. That's not right. The guitars at first make you think of Living After Midnight but it stops there, this is more of a bluesy, sing along rocker about drugs and ball shaving and broken hearts. It's kind of fucking great and there's serious boogie in the backbeat. Up The Dosage is an ass kicking ode to excess, the kind of party hard song that the band is known for. The chorus asks for more, more of what exactly? You can probably guess. Some cool female harmonies in the chorus give Cartwright's whisky and cigarette sound a softer edge but only just barely. This is the kind of song that makes you want to go on a bender and drive into a wall.

Lazy Jesus (with Lemmy) sees the band team up with their obvious spiritual mentor, for the most spiritual song on the collection. It's not really that spiritual though, it's more of swampy southern rock track with some rad harmonica playing on it and some weird harmonizing with Lemmy himself. Ain't Your Business sees the end of the album in sight but doesn't slow down at all, it's a two and a half minute bullet of raunchy noise, a fairly straight up rock n roll track. Good Night For A Heart Attack is yet another track that celebrates the perils of excess, which leads perfectly into the album's closer, Stone Cold Down. The last song bring the band's penchant for blues front and center for a song about… Kentucky. Yep. Kentucky. It's sleazy and trashy and dirty and funny and catchy and pretty much everything that's great about Nashville Pussy in one four minute track.

So yeah, you've got the last three albums, right? Don't need this collection? Fair enough, but it does contain a bonus second disc of the band playing “Live In Nottingham.” Here you'll find the following tracks all played live and raw:

One Way Down / Nutbush City Limits (with Ron Heathman) / Struttin' Cock / Late Great USA / Go Motherfucker Go / You're Goin' Down

So yeah, that should be a pretty nice incentive for those who own the previously released discs to consider adding this one to their library. If you're not already a fan this won't convince you but for the converts out there, this is a pretty great collection of rawk.