First, my take on the history of one of my five favorite bands (skip this section and jump to the * if you’re familiar with the Superdrag story and don’t want to read my beginnings)…

They rose to popularity on the back of one of the catchiest songs of the 90s, Sucked Out.  Predictably, the answer to the question “Who sucked out the feeling?” was “MTV and corporate rock radio.”  Despite the fact that the rest of the album Regretfully Yours was just as impressively catchy (and in many cases even more so), the band was quickly slapped with the “one-hit wonder” tag.  Their second album, Head Trip In Every Key was released in 1998 to critical acclaim, only to be completely ignored by those same venues that propelled the band to stardom.  More experimental than their previous work, Head Trip… explored ambitious territories for a sophomore record, and the result was one of the most beautiful records of the decade.  Each track drips with pure heartfelt emotion and the band flipped from drug induced hallucinations to darkly disturbing mental revelations as each track found new direction.  The band was dropped by Elektra Records when all the major labels seemingly imploded at the end of the decade.

After the disappointment following the relative failure of Head Trip…, original bassist Tom Pappas left the band to pursue other projects.  He was replaced by Sam Powers and the band released In The Valley of Dying Stars in 2000.  This still stands as my favorite album by the band and one of my five favorite albums of the new century.  Inspired by the death of his grandfather, primary songwriter and frontman John Davis wrote some of his most heart-wrenching songs.  The tone of the album is quite somber (death), and at times fiercely angry (record label issues), but it’s interspersed with bright and forward looking tracks that seemed to provide a ray of hope.  Guitarist Brandon Fisher left the band after they wrapped up in the studio.  My perspective is that this album was composed during the worst years of John’s life, in which his drug and alcohol abuse had steered his life in a dark and dangerous direction.  On June 9, 2000, I drove to Albany (with @shotcopter) to see them perform at Valentine’s on their tour promoting the new album.  Following the show we stuck around a bit and managed to talk our way backstage to meet the band.  I distinctly remember John sitting alone on the floor in the back of the room with a towel draped over his head.  When we approached to say hello, he pulled back the towel revealing distant, bloodshot eyes.  He was physically there that night, but mentally he was far removed from the world.

The band then released their second indie album, Last Call For Vitriol, in 2002.  While writing the record, John experienced a significant life change.  He describes driving home from a bar one night and being overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness.  He pulled the car to the side of the road and through a veil of tears he describes the moment where he was born again.  From that moment forward all of John’s music would have different meaning as Jesus was now the most important thing in his life.  A few tracks on Last Call… hint towards his newfound Jesus-love.  This marked a significant change for the band.  The album also included several tracks written and sung by Sam Powers.  The album lacked the distinct mood and vision that provided some cohesion on their previous works.  The songs were far removed from the sound of Regretfully Yours, some 8 years prior.  Where that album was Beatles-inspired power-pop, this album was much more Skynrd-inspired southern-rock.  Following some touring, the band agreed to go on-hiatus as John decided it was time for him to devote his life to being a Born Again Christian.  Most fans thought this was the end of Superdrag.  John released two God-centric solo albums.  The first solo album explored gospel and praise rock while still maintaining a distinct “Superdrag-esque” sound.  Lyrically it was all about Jesus, but it was not so preachy that it turned me off.  The second album took a turn towards more of a pop-punk sound as John found a more aggressive vocal style, though many of the songs harkened back to the sounds of early Superdrag.

*
On April 11, 2008 I took the bus to New York City with a good friend to see Superdrag open for Nada Surf.  We arrived to the venue a little late and Superdrag was already playing as we got to the doors.  I ran inside and took up a spot on the side of the crowd.  I hadn’t seen them live since I drove to see them in Buffalo in November of 2002 during their tour for Last Call…, and I hadn’t seen the original lineup playing since I first saw them open for Nada Surf in Rochester way back in 1996 (which was just a totally cool coincidence).  They were great (as was Nada Surf), but the venue was huge and the crowd wasn’t really into them.  About 6 weeks later I was in San Diego visiting my sister and I drove up to Los Angeles on May 28th to see Superdrag play their first show on the west coast since 2002.  The Troubadour was a much more fitting (small) venue for the band and the crowd was full of Superdrag die-hards.  The combination of being 3000 miles away from home, at a famous club, and seeing one of my favorite bands play their first show west of the Mississippi since 2002 added up to one of the best nights of my life.  This night they were truly spectacular.  The set was almost identical to what they had played in NYC, but the mood was much better.  They played b-sides and deep cuts that fans hadn’t heard in over a decade.  They played their hits.  They didn’t play anything from Last Call….  It felt like Superdrag, and it felt great.  This brings us to the present, and Tuesday’s release of the first new Superdrag album in over 7 years, Industry Giants, and the first featuring the original band lineup since Head Trip… was released over 10 years ago.

I received an advanced copy of Industry Giants a week early thanks to a local radio station (@WBER).  I was excited, yet quite nervous.  The CD sat on my desk for 3 days before I decided I was ready to hear it.  The band had played a few of these new songs at the shows I saw last year and one of them really stuck with me because it really felt like a classic Superdrag song.  That track was Filthy & Afraid, and it’s my favorite song on the album.  (CLICK HERE TO LISTEN)  I’ve listened to the album non-stop for the past 5 days and it’s growing on me.  The more I listen, the more familiar it all sounds.  There are many of the classic sounds that made me originally fall in love with the band.  The sweeping wall-of-sound of Live And Breathe would fit snugly on the tracklist for Head Trip…, Everything’ll Be Made Right would fit on In The Valley…, Filthy & Afraid has the same major/minor tonality that made Regretfully Yours so catchy, I Only Want A Place I Can Stay, might as well have been stripped right off a Bob Mould record, and Try hits you with the guitar sound that most specifically defines Superdrag for me.  It’s a gooey, soupy, and bendy tone as John & Brandon massage the tremolo bars on their Fender Jaguars with each passing chord.  It makes each chord change sound like you’re listening to playback through an old reel-to-reel tape deck with a dying motor that can’t maintain a constant speed.  However, aside from those five stand-out tracks, the album suffers a bit.
Three of the twelve songs are sung by band members other than John.  Cheap Poltergeists and You’re Alive were written and sung by bassist Tom Pappas, and they clearly skew the album towards his punk-influence.  The former isn’t a bad song, but it definitely suffers when compared to the great songwriting skills of John, the latter just doesn’t fit on this record at all, and only serves to make my mind wander while listening as I struggle to understand why it would be included - if it weren’t for some excellent guitar shredding, it would be an instant-skip.  Ready To Go was written and sung by Brandon.  Lyrically it’s by far the weakest track on the record, and overall the song feels too much like it was squeezed onto the record just so Brandon could have a chance to sing.  Musically it has that gooey guitar thing happening (which I can’t get enough of) but it feels trite and overdone on this track.  Of the four remaining tracks, one is downright unlistenable, and the other three suffer from what I will hereby dub “Dave Grohl Syndrome.”

Five Minutes Ahead Of The Chaos is an unfortunate inclusion on this album.  It has nary a redeeming quality.  I understand that it may fit lyrically, as the there is an angry/rebellious/antiestablishment theme to the record, but the faux-punk music and incredibly poor sound quality make the track stand out in the worst of ways.  Finally, we arrive at the tracks Slow To Anger, Aspartame, & Deathblow To Your Pride - and the Dave Grohl Syndrome from which they all suffer.  It seems as though John has been heavily drinking from the Foo Fountain.  These three songs would be exponentially better if they weren’t sung with forced vocals.  This vocal style, sort of an angry shouting rather than a straight-up scream, has been a hallmark of the Foo Fighters sound since Dave first shouted “This is a call to all my past resignations!” on his first album, but it’s not something I ever want to hear John Davis doing, especially not on a Superdrag record.  One of the most endearing qualities of John’s voice has always been his ability to sing beautiful melodies and express his emotions, whatever they may be, without ever making you feel like he is screaming.  I can find no instance on any previous Superdrag album where John goes full-on Dave Grohl on the listener.  Even on some of their more aggressive tracks from each previous album (Rocket, Sold You An Alibi, Keep It Close To Me, The Staggering Genius) he never crosses the line.  But on these four tracks from the new album, he crosses the line, stands on the other side, douses the line in gasoline, runs deeper into Fooville, and flicks a cigarette into the puddle - igniting a wall of flames intense enough to ensure the listener that he has no intention of leaving Fooville anytime soon.  It’s most unfortunate on Aspartame.  If it wasn’t such a great rock song, it wouldn’t be able to survive John’s Dave Grohl Syndrome, but thankfully it is a great song.

So is the album everything I could have asked for?  No, not quite.  Is it enjoyable?  Absolutely.  It has enough trademark Superdrag moments to keep me listening and, despite the unfortunate evolution of John’s voice, it’s still new music from a band that has meant the world to me emotionally and inspired me musically for the past 14 years.

Superdrag shows I’ve attended:
8/31/1996 - Superdrag, Nada Surf - Water Street Music Hall - Rochester, NY
6/9/2000 - Superdrag - Valentines - Albany, NY
12/20/2000 - Superdrag - Runwayz - Buffalo, NY
10/22/2001 - Superdrag, The Anniversary - TLC - Philadelphia, PA
11/4/2002 - Superdrag, The Donnas - The Continental - Buffalo, NY
4/11/2008 - Superdrag, Nada Surf - Terminal 5 - New York, NY
5/28/2008 - Superdrag, Kay Hanley - The Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA

This picture was from the 11/4/2002 show. Mic is choking me, Don is punching me, John is laughing at me, and Sam is shooting me.  Despite the ass kicking, I still managed to squeeze out a smile.