Nashville Pussy – Up the Dosage

Nashville Pussy – Up the Dosage

Label: Steamhammer/SPV
All Access Rating: A-

Nashville Pussy - Up the Dosage 2014

"The South's Too Fat to Rise Again" may be the greatest song title in history. And "Hooray for Cocaine, Hooray for Tennessee" isn't too shabby either. Yes, Nashville Pussy is at it again, offending the humorless and churning out morally repugnant, 190-proof Southern rock grain alcohol spiked with so much sleazy punk attitude that it could cause blindness, if ingested in mass quantities. 

That's a small price to pay for energetic, shit-kicking rock 'n' roll this ballsy. The black sheep of this white trash family, guitarist/vocalist Blaine Cartwright, says of Up the Dosage that, "This is our Back in Black!" And he isn't just whistling "Dixie." Taking a cue from AC/DC, they aim for simplicity on the rowdy Up the Dosage, packing it to the brim with solid, hot-wired riffing and degenerate songwriting born with a swagger. Political correctness be damned, this souped-up Nashville Pussy are as funny and raunchy as ever, as Cartwright details a sordid, booze-impaired tryst with a high-spirited pregnant women who's "meaner than shit, hotter than Hell" in the Rolling Stones-y, Let It Bleed-era "Before the Drugs Wear Off," featuring a tasty boogie-woogie style piano that channels the spirit of Ian Stewart. 

Then there's the hilarious ode to masturbation that is the high-octane, rip-roaring "Rub it to Death," its turbo-charged, muscular guitars threatening to tearing themselves away from the bones of such mean, cocksure hooks, just like those found in the pulse-pounding "Spent" and an accelerated, utterly infectious "The South's Too Fat to Rise Again." This is Nashville Pussy, the fast version, and like Motorhead, they play rock 'n' roll – unrepentant, dirty and with a taste for drugs and everything tawdry.

Cartwright's wife, guitarist Ruyter Suys, goes for the throat on Up the Dosage, her solos sounding like a hail of gunfire. That's her singing on the hit-and-run blast of gutsy psycho-billy known as "Taking it Easy," and she is a commanding presence. It helps to have sound that is richer and more vibrant than past efforts, and for that, sound engineer Brian Pulito is to be commended. Ultimately, though, it's Nashville Pussy's mix of metallic crunch and ZZ Top's bluesy nastiness, so prevalent on the title track and mid-tempo drawls "Till the Meat Falls Off the Bone" and "White and Loud," that makes Up the Dosage such a tasty meal, even if the cook probably spit in the food.
– Peter Lindblad