Ginger succumbs to the urge… to rave about Urge Overkill. Check out Ginger’s past Secret History Of Rock’n'Roll entries.

URGE OVERKILL
Saturation
1993, Geffen Records

Drugs have obviously been known to topple many more careers than they have enhanced. This is not news.

Where Keith Richards would strut with the gait of a dandy the piratical stance would fell many a Johnny Thunders or Sid Vicious, and where The Beatles would experiment with sonic landscapes a band like, for instance, Urge Overkill would crumble from the weight of balancing talent upon addiction. Each a lifestyle within itself, and neither keen on taking the backseat to the party.

In fact Urge Overkill’s final album, 1995’s Exit The Dragon, was, in essence, the sound of a band suffering the crushing comedown of a heavy binge. Sluggish and confused, it signalled the end of this strange, exotic and often wonderful band.

Shame, then, that in 1993 they released what is considered, in many a circle of learned musical aficionados, one of the greatest pop/rock albums ever recorded.

‘Saturation’ is the sound of the honeymoon period of the drug experience: the rush, the steely glare, the focus and the intent. Gleaming and stately, this album is a brand new silver Rolls Royce floating in silent serenity from the showroom, unmistakably of a time and a place, and no less magnificent for it.

Formed in Chicago in ‘86, Urge Overkill would spend 5 years on the Touch & Go label, fighting against the classic Chicago pop sound that filtered through everything from Cheap Trick to Smashing Pumpkins, and releasing various material, produced by such names as Butch Vig and Steve Albini (Albini’s Big Black were also T&G label mates), while strictly adhering to a noise manifesto which sat directly at odds with what was to become the classic Urge Overkill sound.

Opening up with the instantly hooky ‘Sister Havana’, it’s plain from the opening few bars that the production values lend an air of supremacy to this awesomely consistent album and, within a couple of minutes it has you sat upright and paying full attention. The rich voice of Nash Kato, reminiscent of molasses and glass being mixed in an ice cream churn, is the main force in Urge Overkill’s effortlessly warming sound. Without the songs acting as back up, however, a voice is merely an ingredient. And it’s here that UO deliver with such rapid force that the listener is in undoubtedly in the capable hands of melody masterchefs.

Darker than its West Coast counterparts Chicago pop has always offered a healthily sinister side to its breezy foundations (see Wilco and Veruca Salt, and later Alkaline Trio) and it’s in this world that second song, ‘Tequila Sundae’, exists.

Threatening and subversive without losing the melodic edge, the track twists in on itself with a grinding riff and eerie vocal approach that occasionally reaches almost psychedelic heights until ‘Positive Bleeding’ bursts through the hallucinogenic haze armed with pure pop brilliance and a “c’mon c’mon” chorus (maybe only Cheap Trick fans will understand this last statement?), with Kato’s voice once again taking on classic rock proportions.

As the song ends in a sway of narcotic induced sound waves the Tom Petty-isms of ‘Back On Me’ restore proceedings to a more normal setting with beautifully delivered sunshine driven pop, only to have ‘Woman 2 Woman’ hit third gear with its ‘He’s A Whore’ guitar riff (sorry, another reference for Cheap Trick fans only) and crazed, bug eyed arrangement. Believe me, fair listener, this is the sound of positive drug use!

And yes, of course, there is such a thing.

‘Bottle Of Fur’ seeps in, almost uninvited amid such hedonistic delights, with its own heightened sense of awareness. The languid pace and breath taking beauty of this most sweetest of song is both a bold and smart move when placed, cunningly smack (sic) in the middle of the album. If you need to download any song from this album in order to sample its salacious delights then please let it be ‘Bottle Of Fur’. Classic American rock rubbing shoulders with bristling Walker Brothers sincerity and producing alarmingly emotive results, all finely capped with one of the most moving choruses ever written. I honestly can’t recommend this track highly enough.

‘Crackbabies’, next, makes for slightly uncomfortable listening, as the title would suggest. With the rhythm driving, the band experiment with unexpected burst of noise, only to fall into three part harmony at the drop of a hat. And therein is the secret of urge Overkill’s sound, all at once familiar yet otherworldly, comforting yet dread-filled, theirs is an amalgamation of influences, not all of which entirely healthy, that result in a slightly disorientating-yet-delightful listen quite unlike anything you’ve experienced before.

And as ‘Crackbabies’ segues disturbingly into ‘The Stalker’ the mood is taken down into sub-Lennon depths. Resembling a modern version of the darker moments of The Beatles White Album, and like a private window into someone’s public breakdown, this duo’s distinctly unpleasant jab-and-cross sets up the sublime ‘Dropout’ with magical effect. A starry and spaced-out oddity, ‘Dropout’ marries Marc Bolan vocals with the most simple-yet-effective songwriting structure and paints a picture of intense melancholy.

‘Erica Kane’ dismisses the brief respite and steers the album directly into the mayhem with breakneck intensity, only to fold, midway through, and settle into a beach-party groove before diving back into manic, choppy waters again.

In fact it’s exactly these imaginative twists that successfully bring together the band’s severe light and dark nature in such entertaining fashion.  And with another Tarantino-esque segue, the 70s bar-funk of ‘Nite And Grey’ provides another classic Nash Kato chorus, this time very reminiscent of his stunning solo album ‘Debutante’ (another very highly recommended purchase), before a brief musical mash-up offers up the lights-go-dim parting shot of ‘Heaven 90210′, an engaging send off and a glorious showcase for the soothing resonance of Kato’s vocals.

As previously mentioned, the band’s next album ‘Exit The Dragon’ would be far less joyful affair, parading the inner turmoil and dark side of drug use becoming abuse, that would act as a cheerless swan song of a truly unique talent, but Saturation is an entirely more agreeable beast.

Be warned, this pop rock isn’t of the frivolous variety. The subject matter is often of far more ominous and tragic origin than pop/rock traditionally tackles (e.g. boy meets girl) and the very attack suggests a world where The Beach Boys had never existed.

Drug based music often isn’t pretty, but then neither is the society whose conduct it challenges the established laws of. Sometimes this stance can be one of great strength to the music world of that same society, but – more often than not – is a fleeting insight into the workings of gifted musicians yet to reach imminent burn-out.

In ‘Saturation’ the party was still going strong, the sun hadn’t yet come tearing through the blinds like razor-sharp shards of reality and the times were still vital. And in this album we can relive the supernova without the hangover.

Ah, but it was a great party!