Chicago-based indie rock band Urge Overkill were (and still are) one of only a handful of bands who made that fateful leap from underground, small label coolness to the land of the major labels whilst retaining their guts, their grit and their hip quotient.
Many other bands have succumbed to the trappings of the pressure for the proverbial "hit single" and failed miserably when attempting that switch. Urge never buckled to the pressure yet wound up with about as unlikely a hit as anyone could have predicted. After the trio were hand-picked by film director Quentin Tarantino to cover Neil Diamond's 1967 hit "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" for his now classic 1994 movie "Pulp Fiction", Urge had a bone fide hit on their hands and, to date, have a song that the masses recognize them for.
After five years with the trailblazing indie record label Touch and Go , the band was signed in 1993 to Geffen Records and released their superb Saturation album. A bit more polished than their earlier releases, Saturation lacked nothing in the areas of hooks, riffs and chutzpah. The same can eagerly be said for it's follow-up, 1995's fine Exit The Dragon. The band seemed to be on a focused path to bring melodic hard rock back to those who'd missed it for so long. And then, they seemingly disappeared.
After a few line-up changes and several years of inactivity, Urge Overkill is thankfully back with what might be their strongest release so far, the brand new Rock & Roll Submarine. The self-released album is drenched in the trademark UO sound the band has been heralded for. From the opening guitar crunch of the lead off track, "Mason/Dixon", it's crystal clear that Urge Overkill hasn't mellowed or opted to tinker with their mojo. The guitars are more-than-fuzzed out and thankfully right up in the forefront. Lead singers /guitarists Eddie "King" Roeser and Nash Kato sound as inspired and fiery as ever thanks to their familiar, gritty harmonies that explode on this disc.
There's no shortage of hard rock heroics on Rock & Roll Submarine which clocks in at a lean, mean 40 minutes. Still sticking to straight ahead rock, Urge Overkill deliver the goods as effectively and powerfully as ever. The album's lead single "Effigy" is as strong as anything the band has ever released. In a perfect world, this is what you'd hear blaring out of every car screaming down the highway to hell. Handclaps, tambourines, dual guitar attacks and enough attitude to smother a battalion of skinny jean-wearing wimps make Rock & Roll Submarine the welcomed slab of aggressive rock 'n' roll music so many of us have hungered for in recent years.
The current Urge Overkill lineup (now a quartet) is rounded out by drummer Bonn Quast (ex-Polvo) and former Gaza Strippers bassist Hadji Hodgkiss. The expansion of the band gives frontmen Kato and Roeser more opportunities and freedoms to expand on the wall of guitars their recordings have always been awash with. There's nothing mechanical, computerized or artificial on Rock & Roll Submarine; the sound of guitar strings bending and crackling is as authentic as the flair and panache with which the album is delivered.
For those who have lost the faith or lost the hope that good, straight-ahead rock music free of pretense, bloat or an obnoxious sense of cliché can exist, I whole-heartedly recommend Rock & Roll Submarine. It's been a while since ear-splitting guitars have been presented in such a glorified and unabashed way and I, for one, welcome their return as enthusiastically as I welcome the long-overdue return of the mighty Urge Overkill.
This article appears in Jun 9-15, 2011.