Well, if the name of the band doesn’t make you want to give it a spin, you’ve got no damn sense of humor. Strap on your seatbelt and roll down the window of your Ford Escort. It’s 85 degrees outside with little or no humidity. You’re driving down a random highway that has a letter for a name, like “E” or “XX”. Crank up your tape-player-with-a-tape-adapter-connected-to-a-portable-CD-player as loud as it’ll go without hurting your factory speakers. Alabama Thunderpussy is about to rock your beer-logged ass off!
It is absolutely impossible to dislike the licks these guys throw at you. Like the engine of a ’75 Mustang firing its pistons, the beginning of the opening track, “The Cleansing,” fuels your palate for the roaring burst of metal stringed sensationalism blowing out of the speakers at the next turn! The rest of the road is a bumpy one, but the ever-present taste of alcohol on your breath makes you keep on driving.
If you want a more realistic idea of what the Thunderpussy tastes like, I’d say it’s like listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd–only angry as hell and modernized–with more metal to their sound. Think of the sweet taste of Southern rock dipped in heavy seasoning and topped with rock-metal vocals, and all that crap.
Now, regardless of the sheer brilliance and completely befitting role in the songs, the vocal styles for this album are new to long time fans of the ‘Pussy.’ Newcomer Kyle Thomas bares his tonsils on Open Fire, but with whiskey-ridden vigor. His wails and screeches are enough to make you want to pop open a bottled frosty with your thumb just to look cool but still feel like a dip-shit. Thomas’s words tell an even better story than his voice does. Amidst tales of arrest and drunken swinging matches there lie actual words of wisdom. Take the closing act of the album, “Greed,” for example. The lyrics poetically tell the tale of how we as a society constantly want more and more of what we don’t have. Typically, as all of us know, that’s money…and sex…and the occasional new car. As said (or rather angrily shouted in a melodic way) by Thomas, “some things just aren’t quite what they seem.” Good mother of everything that is holy, that is something I need to remember!
Alright, if you’re just not in the mood to hear heavy yet frolicking licks constantly for a full hour, be not afraid. Once in a half-empty beer bottle, a slow solo wafts across Open Fire’s soundscape. Some of them are slow, most of them are not, but all of them possess serious callous-filled talent. Guitarists Ryan Lake and Eric Larson know what they are doing; it’s obvious from the first pluck.
If you want to put your ears to the test without forking over 15 bucks for the whole album (recommended), take a listen to the dancing-on-the-bar-tastic third track “Words Of the Dying Man.” If you’re in the mood for words of wisdom as well as a good head-thump, check out the next track, the heavily introspective “The Beggar.”
I particularly recommend listening to the album’s 6th track, “Whiskey War,” while drinking heavily. It goes with a fifth of Jim Beam much like cigarettes go with cold Budweiser. However, if you’re one of the types of drunks that gets a real kick out of becoming violent, DON’T…listen to it drunk…still listen to it, by all means…just not whilst drinking.
Open Fire is just a fun album to damage your ears with, plain and simple. I can’t exactly say “it rocks” without making it sound like I’m being completely serious. It’s just that I can’t think of a better way to sum it up. It just does exactly what it is meant to do, it…rocks!
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