Superdrag Sound Laboratories (2025 (Reissue)
I have been a fan of Superdrag from the first time I heard "Sucked Out." When it came out in 1996, I wasn't really the sort of person that would listen to the radio or watch MTV. In fact, I'm pretty certain that I've never seen the video for that song even to this day. But I was writing for my college newspaper in 1996 and Regretfully Yours was sent to the office for review. I took it as something of a guilty pleasure as I knew the band was getting popular in the buzz bin section of the world, but to me it was just an excellent pop record. That sort of fleeting fame comes and goes pretty quickly, but Superdrag remained consistent, pumping out strong records for the next few years.
Last Call For Vitriol is the fourth album of that initial run. They did eventually do a fifth in 2009, but to be honest, I've not heard it. Last Call came out in 2002 on Arena Rock records. I remember it vividly because I was interning at my eventual music industry job and I stuffed about 400 of them into envelopes to send out to college radio. I'll be honest, while I did like it, I wasn't blown away at the time.
As the years have gone by (way too many years, if you ask me) my appreciation for the band's entire catalog has grown and Last Call For Vitriol has come along for that ride. That said, there's still some misses on here for me. I still don't really love the garage-y swagger of "I Can't Wait" or the alterna-rock of "The Staggering Genius" or the 'hey-is-this-a-Fountains-of-Wayne-ballad' of "Safe & Warm." But when the band is in full on pop mode like they are on "Baby Goes To 11," "So Insincere" and "Remain Yer Strange" it's impossible to not love Superdrag.
While I would still probably rank Last Call For Vitriol as the weakest of the four main Superdag records, that doesn't make it a weak album. There are half a dozen killer songs on here and even the ones I mentioned above aren't bad at all, they're just not at the level of the pop madness the band is capable of. More than anything, I'm just really happy this is finally on vinyl so I can complete my run of Superdrag full lengths.
Superdrag - Last Call For Vitriol:
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