Saturation (album)

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Saturation

Studio album by Urge Overkill

Released

June 8, 1993

Recorded

December 17, 1992-January 9, 1993

Genre

Rock, Alternative

Length

42:43

Label

DGC

Producer

Butcher Bros., Andy Kravitz

Professional reviews

All Music Guide (4.5/5) link
Rolling Stone link

Urge Overkill chronology

The Supersonic Storybook
(1991)

Saturation
(1993)

Exit the Dragon
(1995)

Released in 1993, Saturation is the fourth album by Chicago alt-rock group Urge Overkill and produced by the Butcher Bros. The band had been an underground act with ties to post-rock recorder/musician/iconoclast Steve Albini (who recorded the final studio album for Nirvana). Upon moving from the Chicago label, Touch and Go, they were generally reviled by Albini and other members of indie rock's press for selling out.

Saturation was their Geffen Records debut, and a deliberate attempt at a hit record. When the album came out, the label wasted no time in getting the singles "Sister Havana" and "Positive Bleeding" out to European tastemakers via singles.

[edit] Tracks

The topic of "Sister Havana" is one of jealousy over a hot Latina hooking up with, ultimately, Fidel Castro. "Sister Havana" is driving with a crunchy, sometimes muted riff and (in a throwback to the '70s they love to ape) a prominent cowbell track.

The tunes that follow continue to drive the record until a well-placed midtempo ballad called "Back on Me". This song, while not as heavy as most of the album, has a shimmering/jangly chorus and a hook that will certainly get stuck in your memory. The UO sound has often been about symbolism rather than substance on previous records, but here, the sincerity of the performance, the strength of the writing, and the overall production are so convincing, that it doesn't come across as the usual UO ironic stance.

Once "Back on Me" finishes, UO returns to the rock with "Woman 2 Woman", "Bottle of Fur", (another label single with a thinly-veiled tribute to a woman's charms) the punk-rock rave-up "Crackbabies", and a weird, riff-drunk, crunchy tune, "The Stalker". This last tune sounds so direct that it works perfectly against the backdrop of the hooky songs preceding it. The album then gets quiet with a drum-machine and acoustic guitar number called "Dropout". It sounds like the Butcher Bros. brought the funk out of the band that had always been there, but in quite an understated, intimate way. The surprising thing is that "Dropout" completely works with the rest of the album.

Once the drum machine begins to ascend in the mix, it is abruptly cut off and segues into "Erica Kane," an ironic salute to the soap opera character whose eyes Nash Kato wishes to "dry". Quite the funny rocker, its muscular verses give way to a poppy bridge that really saves the song. "Erica Kane" is then followed by the sincere sound of "Nite and Grey". Though the lyrics are not stellar, the lead guitar break and chord structure sound like classic rock of the highest melodic quality.

The set is rounded out by a wry ballad in "Heaven 90210" (remember that Beverly Hills 90210 was in its heyday in the early '90s). If you leave your player on, it will eventually come to a hidden track called "Operation Kissinger" - a wacky, noisy counterpart to "Dropout", "Operation Kissinger" was originally a b-side to the European single release of "Sister Havana". "Operation Kissinger" has drum machine loops, samples (including a classic Prince scream), some crazy hysterics and an obnoxious rhythm guitar playing ad nauseam. It almost causes the veteran listener of UO to realize that the guys who made the early noise records with Steve Albini still lurk in the psyches of Nash Kato and Eddie "King" Roeser.

The cover art features a picture of the skyline of Houston, TX. If you look closely (this is easier on the vinyl LP) you can see a tiny billboard that says "UO Saturation Out Now".

[edit] Aftermath

Saturation showed that UO held great promise as a pop-rock mammoth if it decided to follow the same path, but alas, it was not to be. The darker-edged, more mature-sounding follow up, Exit the Dragon, got little promotion beyond its initial release, and the subsequent tour fell apart due to drugs and in-fighting.