Labels: Relapse
Review by: Kunal Nandi
Alabama Thunderpussy albums come along every couple of years, and that’s fine by me. They’re called Alabama Thunderpussy for god’s sake. It gives me a good excuse to say Alabama Thunderpussy a lot anyway.
Having parted ways with long-time vocalist Johnny Throckmorton and replaced him with someone with a far less rock “n’ roll name hasn’t really changed ATP’s style in any way, shape or form. Booze-swilling, resin-caked, stoner-rock; no more, no less. This time round though, it seems that the harder bits have got harder (this is on Relapse Records after all) and the softer bits have gotten softer. And I mean really soft. The intro had me seriously worried for a couple of minutes, due to its close approximation to the incidental music from some angsty teen drama serial. Luckily some meaty riffing rolls in right after, but sooner or later it all begins to gets terribly middle-of-the-road, usually during the quiet bits. The vocals are also suitably James Hetfield-esque, providing a manly roar when volume demands, but also not without the limp, fruity, deep-voiced, whisky-sozzled musings on life in general during the aforementioned quiet bits.
So if you fancy something that is, at times, embarrassingly middle-of-the-road, with the rest clod-hoppingly brash and unsubtle, then you’ll enjoy this redneck combo of EyeHateGod and Lynyrd Skynyrd, although not quite as great (or perhaps awful?) as that might suggest. ATP have always made music that has a clutch of cool little riffs and segments, but as a whole, the songs are too drawn out to ever be anything more memorable than that.