5 out of 5

Label: Arena Rock

Produced by: Nick Raskulinecz and Superdrag

I remember.  I remember shopping through the cut-outs in the Tower Records Annex and skipping over copies of this disc, despite the awesomely bleak cover art.  My friend (sometimes I’ve had those) Alex was there with his girlfriend and plucked the album out of the stack, telling me I should get it.  “I dunno,” I shrugged, and mentioned not really digging that disc that we all had in middle school with that one single on it.  But he pushed past my protestations and got his girlfriend on board, proclaiming the greatness of ‘In the Valley of Dying Stars’ as a perfect pop-rock album.  I continued meh-ing, and then he dropped some explanation about something something Where Did I Think Bands Like The Grifters Got Their Sound From which, years later, I can bluster at because, well, The Grifters came way first and also – no – but Alex was being Alex and poking at my Music Asshole gene which needed to be knowledgeable on music things and we had just been arguing over the ownership of a Grifters promo a couple days prior.  Final argument: it was only a couple bucks.  Fine.

‘In the Valley of Dying Stars’ is a perfect pop-rock album.  I offer the narration above because you remember moments like that when the reverberations of said moment seem impactful, and my tastes from hereafter would be so much more open to rock of varying varieties.  Yes, I went back and re-listened to ‘Regretfully Yours’ after this and it’s much more than just its single.  But it started here.  And, frankly, it’s at its best here.  Superdrag were hinting at the blend of raucous fury tinged with pop and folk found on ‘Valley’ leading up to it – funneling the upstart energy of their debut disc and the sweet Jerry Finn pop of ‘Head Trip’ into something both more refined and free – and were somewhat trying to get back to it with the discs that followed, ‘Vitriol’ coming across almost like a B-sides version of this album and the (for now) final ‘Industry Giants’ sounding very much like the reunion disc it was.

‘Valley’ opens with an excellent anthem, ‘Keep It Close To Me,’ that’s maybe vaguely a dedication to the power of music… at least for John Davis, with rock’n’roll close to his heart.  The lyrics are a little too open, stumble a bit for imagery, but the passion is there and the message sets the stage for lurching into the aptly titled ‘Gimme Animosity.’  The album then settles into the comfortable chops of what could be called Superdrag’s core sound, but it sounds so natural here, Raskulinecz smart production wringing the most out of the mix – Don Coffey’s drums, Davis’ vocals and the guitar brought in at similar levels, with Sam Powers’ bass and the low-end getting some primacy – such that the rock standards don’t get lost in the mix as they did on ‘Regretfully Yours.’  But that’s also the case because the songs on here are so strong individually, each track delivering hummable themes and notable lyrics.

Some discs you warm to, some are good right away.  ‘Valley’ was a new genre for me at the time.  I didn’t have to warm to it, but I also couldn’t rock out to it right away.  I just knew it was a great album, and I let my appreciation of it evolve with my tastes over however many replays.