TORPEDO
- Superscope (Zip Records)
Got an urgent email from the Barman yesterday - the Lost Weekend pop festival
is next weekend and Superscope are coming over from Perth to play at it, so
the gentle suggestion was that I better get my finger out and review 
that
recent CD of theirs, which was lobbed through the open door of the bar by one
of their (and our) chums at Zip Records some time ago.
Well okay, yeah, good idea. There's an art to this reviewing lark though. First step, find the CD you're supposed to be reviewing. A lengthy search ensues. Needless to say I don't find the Superscope CD, things are never that easy, but I do find a lot of other stuff that I have been looking for recently, like my Bats "best of" (they're coming through town next week as well, just before the Lost Weekend shows). Most of the day's discoveries fall into the "why the f#$% did I put that there?!?" category; I gotta come up with a better filing system. A second search this morning has been more successful. What am I saying...? You either find it or you don't; the search is either 100% successful or it's a complete bust. Today it's 100% successful. Cue sounds of unrestrained applause and the occasional raucous cheer.
So now to business: should I start with a band discography and brief history? Why bother, when they've already got their own web site where they tell their version of their story better than I'm likely to tell my version. Don't be fooled by the "earl" on the links page on the Lost Weekend site though, it's pointing to an older site which is no longer being kept up to date (go on, go to www.lostweekend.com.au and check it for yourself if you don't believe me - c'mon on, you know you want to). So, why don't I just slip the CD into the CD-Rom, put the headphones on and spend a few minutes downloading porn while I jog my memory... Ah, that's better - it's all coming back to me now.
If the "Lizzie/Sail Away" double "A" sided single last year was meant to serve as an introduction to Superscope and/or this album, then it didn't do its job too well, because the track I liked most ("Sail Away") isn't on this album, while "Lizzie" is. The news is not all bad though; far from it in fact. My main complaint about the single was that the songs were a tad too light. Sure, this is power pop not heavy metal, but I still expect a bit of a jab in amongst my melodies. I'm happy to report that, for the most part, there are no grounds for making the same complaint about this album. Right from the opening chords of the opening track, "Same Way", the band comes out of its corner swinging and while they do vary the pace a bit (as in slow it down and come over all soft and sensitive) on a couple of the songs, the general thrust keeps you ducking, diving and generally rolling with the punches. So what else is there to complain about then? I might be grasping at straws here, but the only thing I can come up with is that they tend to wear their influences on their sleeves a little too obviously. There are distinct echoes of everything from the Easybeats and Elton John ("Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" and "The Bitch Is Back" in different places I mean, not one of his soppy ones) to Thin Lizzy and by "echo" I mean a snatch/a few chords that make you want to spring up out of your chair and yell to everyone in the room, "Hey I recognise this one!" (something which I know from bitter experience annoys the crap out of most audiophiles of my acquaintance).
While former Posey Ken Stringfellow was only involved on the production side for the two tracks on the single and hence only one of the tracks on this album (since the other track was left off the album, but you knew that already because you've been paying attention, right?), I constantly hear the echo of his voice in most of Kevin Borruso's vocals (I mean, yeah, he is singing backing vocals on some tracks, but I'm hearing echoes in the lead vocals too). Since I'm not overly familiar with Superscope's pre-Stringfellow oeuvre (never having bought the early Citadel records, my acquaintance being limited to a couple of tracks on compilations which had more of a Stems/Dom Mariani feel), I can't say definitely whether this is a recent trend following contact with the great man himself (who seems to be in the process of being written out of Seattle history since the Posies' music doesn't fit the "Seattle sound"), or whether this is the way it's always been and maybe that's what caught Mr Stringfellow's interest in the first place (I'm not suggesting a mini-Me situation, just a meeting of like minds and a confluence of vocal styles).
Standout track right from the first couple of playings was "Window", which
really f#$%in' rips (now, why wasn't THAT a single?), followed closely by the
aforementioned "Same Way", "P.P.Y.", "Girls Smile", "You Say" and the raucous
shouter "Always OK". Heck, I've even found myself warming to "Lizzie" lately.
More than enough goodies for the budget conscious punter looking for a decent
dividend in the price/performance sense. Roll on the Lost Weekend I say. -
John McPharlin
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