The Resounding

2003's Resounding finds Alabama Thunder Pussy guitarist Erik Larson stepping out on his own for the first time. The owner of an impressive resume which, besides ATP, also includes a lengthy stint as the drummer with punk rockers Avail, Larson took advantage of some rare downtime in late 2001 (ATP's label had just gone bankrupt) to record some song ideas he deemed unfit for his main band. Including material he'd been stashing away since as far back as 1997, Resounding doesn't stray too far from Larson's usual bread and butter, hard rock, as fist-pounding riff vehicles like "Mine Never Was," "Rede," and the self-explanatory "I Feel Like Ted Nugent" readily prove. But it does find room for the multi-instrumentalist (himself responsible for virtually every sound captured here, barring bass guitar) to explore less obvious directions that include mellow acoustic numbers ("Of Storms," "Unresolved"), as well as looser jams infiltrated by softer dynamic nuances, such as "Our Voice," and "Hardest Thing to Write About." The latter also features female vocals to compliment Larson's passable but unremarkable voice, but the resulting experiment is ultimately more interesting than necessarily successful. All in all, Resounding doesn't reveal a surprising hidden side in the artist's creative makeup so much as confirm his commitment and importance to what defines the Alabama Thunder Pussy sound.