URGE OVERKILL – SATURATION (GEFFEN)

URGE OVERKILL – SATURATION (GEFFEN)

Saturation is the fourth studio album by Urge Overkill and the first they released on a major label.  It is regarded as an explicit effort to have a hit record.  In other words it is essentially the sound of a band selling out.

Released in the summer of 1993 this was ahead of the band’s exposure via Pulp Fiction so at the time they very much were still something of a curiosity and acquired taste.  They came with cred but whether they came with chops was another issue.

It opens with a big rock sound and “Sister Havana”, one of the two tracks (along with “Positive Bleeding”) that were released as singles.  There is nothing shy or modest in these gestures.

For me Urge Overkill always inhabited a strange space.  From a purely musical standpoint I can’t see why future Kings Of Leon didn’t latch onto them first.  Person they were too far ahead of the game.  Then there are the elements that echo/resemble Afghan Whigs in less subtle fashion.

As the album progresses it feels tough to assess where it was actually aiming.  This was a still era of angst, a few months before their label mates released In Utero, but here was an unabashed party band explicitly nodding at the light side of the seventies.  Who ever wanted that?  For a band that had evidently earned their indie stripes it all just sounded wrong.

It is not until “Woman 2 Woman” (track five) that I finally hear something that like.  And that is what sounds like a metal take on the Ramones.  With that a warmth exudes on the next track “Bottle Of Fur” as the band finally seems to get going albeit in a vibe that still screams Kings Of Leon to me.  Then a positive threesome is completed by the frenetic “Crackbabies”.

The highlight arrives in the fuzzy “The Stalker” which feels the one true pure representation of the movement and the moment.  Its stocked and heavy in a befitting manner even reminding me of the sound L7 at their best would inhabit.

Despite “Nite And Grey” opening with a sample from Hawaii Five-0 and there being a track entitled “Heaven 90210” humour is sadly in short supply.  Essentially it is just too much about dick.

Saturation is the right word.

Thesaurus moment: suffuse.

Urge Overkill

Geffen