In the Valley of Dying Stars
(Arena Rock)
The story is old, and becoming increasingly common in today’s narrow-minded, profit driven record industry: band releases timely album and video to the delight of the masses and radio programmers. Band follows up with a less accessible record that causes turmoil inside the label despite revealing remarkable maturity, talent, and potential brilliance. Band and multinational, faceless recording giant part ways discordantly.
Such was the case with Superdrag who, now free of Elektra’s creative fettering, have released In the Valley of Dying Stars, a rejuvenating blast of pissed off, nuts-and-bolts rock & roll that may have arrived in time to save music yet.
Valley effortlessly combines the acrid attitude of their debut Regretfully Yours with the melodic sharpness of their largely overlooked sophomore disc Head Trip In Every Key to a potent effect. The drums are both uninhibited and articulate, perfectly complementing the jagged, raw guitar interplay of John Davis and Brandon Fisher. Memorable melodies and rich tonal textures crop up at an unrelenting pace.
Classic, up-tempo Superdrag tunes like “Goin’ Out” and “Some Kinda Tragedy” prevail, but brooding, melancholy masterpieces like the title-track and the sepulchral “The Warmth of a Tomb” provide necessary gravity.
Bandleader Davis has lost neither his gift for crafting deceptively intricate three-minute rock songs nor his ingenious lyrical voice, which can be bitingly bitter one moment and sincerely touching the next, the latter being evident in the funereal “Unprepared.” Furthermore, Davis continues to wield perhaps the widest vocabulary in rock. Who else could sing, “Gimme reciprocity/ Gimme animosity,” as he does on “Gimme Animosity,” the band’s stinging call to controversy?
To lovers of inventive, insightful rock that doesn’t bow to corporate imposed archetypes, In the Valley of Dying Stars is a messiah, here to deliver us from these perilous times.
By Casey Lombardo
Long Beach Union
Originally printed 10.2.00
Back to Music
