Superdrag - In The Valley Of Dying Stars

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The scenario that plagues Knoxville band Superdrag has become pretty commonplace in the rock scene. It goes a lot like this: band gets signed to a major label amid a feeding frenzy to find the next big thing, in this case grunge of the early and mid 90’s. The band’s debut album, here Regretfully Yours, then grabs the attention of radio listeners everywhere with a nice pop song, in this case MTV buzz bin favorite “Sucked Out”, band follows it up with more mature and even critically acclaimed, but poorer selling follow up, see Head Trip in Every Key. Record company, Elektra, only interested in lining their pockets and not developing artist’s or apparently in this case putting out great albums, drops band. So goes the story, however unlike most bands Superdrag was lucky enough to hook up with Brooklyn based, indie label Arena Rock records, or maybe Arena Rock records was lucky to sign such a talented band as Superdrag, in any case they found each other and have released Superdrag’s third album In The Valley Of Dying Stars.

The album kick’s off with the opening line from “Keep it Close to Me”, “I want rock ‘n’ roll but I don’t want to deal with the hassle”, obviously referring to the joys of major label meddling. Along with the opening track the next three tracks return to the loud and catchy power pop of the bands debut album Regretfully Yours.

“Lighting the Way” the albums first single, is also a pleasant blast of power pop that at times lead singer John Davis vocals closely resemble that of Foo Fighter’s front man Dave Grohl in the Foo song “Learn to Fly.” Following that up is the more melancholy tune “The Warmth of a Tomb” which slows the album down and signals the return of the creative arrangements of the bands sophomore release Head Trip in Every Key.

The darker “Unprepared” brings to mind the beautiful piano driven pop songs of the recently defunct Ben Folds Five. The song shows that the band isn’t scared to try things with deeper feelings as the chilling song, details dealing with the loss of a loved one? Following “Unprepared” is two more catchier as hell power pop tracks. The title track “In the Valley of the Dying Stars” closes the album. The song starts off slow with the strum of an acoustic guitar before moving into the louder fuzzed out guitars, accompanied with some nice backing harmonies.

Why major label Elektra decided to pass on this record after hearing these songs and decided to pass on this record, is simply stunning, in my opinion this is one of the better releases of this year. How record execs can ignore this band and continue to search for the next Limp Bizkit is beyond me.


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