Some days really are just yelling days. And while most folks associate that wailing crash-pop feeling to the 1990s-- as if that decade was the first to invent the "is-it-really-only-3:30" urge to claw your way out of a cubicle, a basic instict that grows at the spine and will one day end with a fax machine to the window-- this is something I'm not sure is the case. That humans can take 3:30 frustration (and it doesn't require an office, just 3:30 frustration at life, at the day) and turn it into music rooted in urgent hooks and a smashing flood of guitar fuzz, drum kicks, and knowing vocals, is just one tidbit of many that daily restores my faith in the species. Superdrag restores my faith in the species.
Anyone who's heard the band's back catalog-- and, for that matter, anyone who's caught their latest offering Industry Giants-- knows what I mean. They're not just wall-of-sound "power pop" (as the catch-all genre enthusiasts would say); Superdrag are damn well centered, a see-saw rocking between rage and grace, but even in their most blissed-out moments every song is undercut with necessity. John Davis is a front-man equivilant of that well-dressed guy on the 9:00 AM Red Line, who stands up and speaks and needs to be heard. No, he does not smell like stale beer and mustard. No, he isn't crazy (I think). He just needs to be heard; he knows what the what is. Superdrag at their very best are all about that core of honest feeling, that moment where a person is bubbling over, fit to burst, and finally does (in their case, all over a microphone).
Industry Giants can be found at iTunes and Amazon. Also, Superdrag themselves are playing the Metro this Saturday (4/25). Doors open at 8:00, show starts at 9:00, tickets are $20, and you best be over 18. Gig also features Van Ghost and Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra.
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