- Keeping The Urge Alive: Dive, Captain, Dive!
It's 2011. And I just purchased a newly-recorded Urge Overkill album. On vinyl. When are we?
At 16, an older friend tipped me off to the joys of Urge's masterpiece
- Saturation. I call it their masterpiece because to my mind, it's
where their (too early for irony) '70s rock-god image-mongering met
the effortless hooks of savvy ex-punks. They were loud, hooky, and
catchy as the flu. Over the years, I've eventually come to the
conclusion that I prefer the previous album The Supersonic Storybookfor it's alternative guitars and Exit The Dragon for its beautifully
ragged Exile On Main Street "everything's-faling-apart" atmosphere.
As good as each of those are, Storybook is too ragged, and Dragon is
too wiped-out to really register as "the one". No, for sheer
summertime adrenaline, Saturation is the one to go with -- glossy
and shiny as a new pair of sunglasses, and stomping like a mammoth.
Riff after riff, thundering drums, and enough "whoo hoo hoo"s to get
anyone smiling.
Now, as many years have gone by since Urge Overkill's last record in
'95 as the years I had under my belt when I first heard them. And
they sound no worse for wear on Rock & Roll Submarine. I have no
idea what that ridiculous title means, but as a fan who loves seeing
that "UO" logo on an album, that cover is wonderful, as
is the interior blueprint of what would be included in a giant,
spherical, multi-story submarine (tiki bar and bowling lane are
ESSENTIAL). But what matters is what's inside the grooves, maaaan. It's no instant
summer classic, but this is the followup that Saturationdeserved but never really got. Enter the Dragon had more in common
with the disheartened rawness of the indie rock of the 2000s, but
despite evidence of aural lessons learned from Dragon, the sounds
here are mostly cribbed from the lumbering rock monsters of the past.
As far back as Americruiser's "Ticket To L.A.", they've been working
Marshall-stack classic-rock riffs into something sassy enough for the now-aging Gen X -- with the added bonus of this decade's audio engineering, they manage to polish most of these songs to a fine
sheen.... not in a derogatory way, more like the way Cheap Trick could
be heavy and rockin' and slick as hell on their classic early albums. Like the way a band like... say... Urge Overkill managed back in the day. With all the flangers and layers of guitars and interweaving
harmonies, Rock And Roll Submarine sounds more like the proper
followup to the "breakthrough that never came" after Saturation failed
to make the boys the mega-stars they so clearly believed they were.
But what about the SONGS? Well, they're solid. Urge always wrote
great riffs, and backed them up with cool arrangements and good
vocals. The drums pound, the bass pulses, and the guitars churn out
memorable riffs left and right. Sure, it's a new rhythm section, and previous drummers Jack Watt and Blackie Onassis each had their own style, but it was never the rhythm section that made you listen to Urge, right? By adding new drummer Brian Quast and bassist Mike Hodgekiss from the ever-awesome Gaza Strippers, Nash Kato and Eddie "King" Roeser are now free to double up the guitar crunch. The pair,
reunited inexplicably after some Dino Jr-level infighting in the late-'90s, once again
step up and deliver their trademark "badass rock'n'roll" vocals (a style, not a judgement call), and it sounds perfectly... well...
right. I can't quite put my finger on it, but all the pieces just add
up.
Of course, many (ok, MOST) are writing this reunion and album off as some weird
nostalgic joke. But the more I think about it, nobody makes records like this anymore. Straightahead rock and roll records, highly self-aware, but delivered with enough swagger that it backs up the (self-)hype. Surprisingly, the presence of
Urge Overkill into the 2010s is far less irony-laced than I expected, since the previous incarnation is now primarily remembered as "early users of indie-rock irony" and "that band with that Neil Diamond song from 'Pulp Fiction'".
Their velvet smoking jackets and turtlenecks seemed like an insane
gimmick in an era of dour po-faced seriousness. So it's actually refreshing
that by leaving smarminess largely to the wayside, Urge Overkill comes
across as one of the LEAST "affected" rock bands out there. A
completely absurd value statement, to be sure. When Urge is one of your
most direct and honest bands, the cosmic balance has been upset. In an era of high-concept
albums and theatrical rock shows, it's pretty refreshing to
have a quartet of guys go out and unapologetically rock the fuck out.
Amen.Labels: reviews, Rock And Roll Submarine, Urge Overkill
