{"id":40740,"date":"2008-02-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/last-call-for-vitriol\/"},"modified":"2008-02-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T00:00:00","slug":"last-call-for-vitriol","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/last-call-for-vitriol\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Call For Vitriol"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many times have I said this now?\u00a0 It\u2019s all Heather Browne<\/a>\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

I discovered Heather\u2019s music blog I Am Fuel, You Are Friends<\/i> (it\u2019s a Pearl Jam quote) a couple of years back and it\u2019s been costing me money ever since.\u00a0 I\u2019ll stop by to see what she thinks of the latest Springsteen or Vedder or Fountains Of Wayne or something and all of a sudden I\u2019ll be plunking down cash for Jeff Buckley or Superdrag instead.<\/p>\n

And thank the Deity for that, because, as in several other cases, I picked Last Call For Vitriol<\/i> up based a hundred percent on Heather\u2019s praise, and it\u2019s yet another diamond in the rough.<\/p>\n

The question in the most recent of the many spins I\u2019ve given this disc has been, can the rest of the album ever live up to a beginning as terrific as this one\u2019s?\u00a0 Solo acoustic guitar strums coax out a rather Pete Townshend-y repeating chord (think \u201cBehind Blue Eyes\u201d) until the vocals come in, tight and intense: \u201cShe\u2019s one in a billion \/ With lips of vermillion \/ She created the heavens \/ Baby goes to eleven \/ When she rides beside me \/ Her bright lights will hide me \/ She is one with the heavens \/ Baby goes to eleven.\u201d\u00a0 And then the full band kicks in with driving drums and fat electric chords and the song turns into a roaring, soaring, propulsive anthem that feels like a rawer, more visceral reimagining of Tom Petty\u2019s classic \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d — which happens to be one of my favorite songs ever<\/i>.\u00a0 When drummer Don Coffey Jr. goes all Keith Moon at the bridge while singer and chief songwriter John Davis holds it all together by pure force of will, I\u2019m sold.\u00a0 No, I\u2019m more than sold; I\u2019m a fan.<\/p>\n

Last Call For Vitriol<\/i> is, like each of Superdrag\u2019s four complete studio discs to date, uniquely a product of its context. At the point it came along, the band had been in turmoil for the better part of its eight-year lifespan, having signed with Elektra with great expectations in 1996, only to be virtually abandoned two years later, leaving the band splintered but determined to carry on.\u00a0 By 2002, they were down to original members Davis<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and Coffey, with Mic Harrison on electric guitar and Sam Powers contributing bass, guitar and vocals. <\/p>\n

The sound on Last Call<\/i> is reminiscent of another fave of mine, the Gin Blossoms, and both bands obviously owe a huge debt to Big Star, the prototypical misunderstood power-pop savants.\u00a0 What Superdrag adds to the mix of jangly, hooky, cynical guitar-pop is a welcome element of rawness.\u00a0 Yeah, \u201cI Can\u2019t Wait\u201d and \u201cSo Insincere\u201d feature catchy riffs and strong choruses, but there\u2019s a noise quotient that multiplies the edginess of their fervent lyrics.<\/p>\n

Another brilliantly conceived number \u201cFeeling Like I Do\u201d has an almost Beach Boys, pleading-love-song feel to the opening lines, but the riffage is heavy and fuzzy and the lyric gets darker and darker as it becomes clear the narrator is fighting to protect his girl from his own self-destructive tendencies. The Gin Blossoms parallels are obvious; when the tambourine comes in behind the guitar solo you can almost feel Doug Hopkins in the room.<\/p>\n

Davis<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>\u2019s classicist instincts shine through elsewhere as well.\u00a0 \u201cWay Down Here Without You\u201d features rich, Byrds-y acoustics and three-part harmonies; \u201cHer Melancholy Tune\u201d is a Revolver<\/i>-esque vignette that would have George and Paul nodding and grinning. Back on the noisy end of things, Powers contributes the quirky\/hooky thumper \u201cRemain Yer Strange\u201d and the thrashing, rather punky \u201cStu,\u201d both worthy additions to the Superdrag catalog, even if they turned out to be Powers\u2019 swan song with the band.<\/p>\n

Last Call For Vitriol<\/i> looked like it might have been the end of the road for Superdrag at the time.\u00a0 With Powers\u2019 departure the band went on hiatus and Davis<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> subsequently issued a couple of solo discs.\u00a0 The band\u2019s original lineup reconvened last year, though, touring and preparing to return to the studio this month to record together for the first time in a decade.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

What was that song title I quoted earlier?\u00a0 Oh, yeah: \u201cI Can\u2019t Wait.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8141],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40740","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-superdrag","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40740"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}