Friday, December 12, 2008

Changin' Tires On The Road To Ruin by Superdrag

(Preface: I like Superdrag a lot and as such, I've decided I'm going to review all of their albums. I apologize in advance.)

Superdrag is a totally jangly rock band of awesome, and (technically) this is their most recent album, being a collection of unreleased tracks collected by Arena Rock Recording Company. As a collection of C-sides, early demos, and two live tracks, you can't expect to find their best work on here...however, a few tracks spring up as diamonds in the rough cuts. 'Relocate My Satellites' is driven hard by the rhythm section with great pacing and 'Here We Come' is a short, straightforward primer on the Superdrag sound. 'No Inspiration' sounds like a love letter to simple 60's rock. Oh, and lyrically, its still heads and shoulders above 90% of modern American rock music.

Weaknesses are songs like 'Doctors Are Dead' (not their best slow jam) and the demo version of 'Keep It Close to Me' (the demo lacks the drama and intensity of the album track).

As far as things go, it lacks some of the polish of full-length Superdrag albums like Head Trip In Every Key and In The Valley of Dying Stars, but Superdrag doesn't usually suffer from lack of production.

Because this is a review of a Superdrag album, people who know me very well will probably assume that I'll rate it highly.

Both of those people are right.

RATING: 78% (which means that it is better than the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and worse than Herr's Heinz Ketchup Chips)

3 comments:

DCP said...

Hey, I still appreciate that Superdrag supermix cd you made me a year or so ago. And a Superdrag/GBV show was the second best concert experiece I've ever had.

Bryan said...

Yeah, I'm awesome. Oh, and their new album, Industry Giants comes out sometime in the spring. It should be all kinds of great, based on the studio noise I've heard on YouTube and the reunion concerts last year.

What was the best concert experience?

DCP said...

Sonic Youth last year. They played more than half of Daydream Nation, which is my favorite album of all time.