The Automatik

Fresh from major-label coronation, Urge Overkill hit the early ’90s, their belts notched with a fair amount of indie cred.

The album cover almost said it all: the band’s logo as a hyperbolic cartoon, a sunset behind a cityscape. This wasn’t rock and roll; this was genocide. Rife with guitar clichés and ripe for AOR radio, Saturation was drenched in the kind of ridiculous posturing usually reserved for hair metal bands.

Singer Nash Kato’s deadpan delivery is the perfect foil for cheesy rockers offset by catchy choruses that take no prisoners. “Girl, what’s your sign? Vagitarius?” Kato wonders in an ironic ode to his lesbian crush. “Bottle of Fur” exposes our hero’s tender side. “We used to make it til daylight,” he croons, with the trademark stadium rock catch in his voice. There are even loving mentions of Erika Kane, Mary Tyler Moore, and Beverly Hills 90210. After all, this was the decade when coming out of the trash-culture closet was as common as flannel shirts and torn jeans.

But it’s not all cock and circumstance. “Stalker” and “Nite and Grey” recall the grimy times of their Stull EP on Touch and Go, with guitarist Eddie straining to hit the high notes. The moody “Dropout” features drummer Blackie Onassis over spare, spooky keyboards and a synthesized beat.

Yes, Urge Overkill seemed to have it all: borrowed Cheap Trick riffs, good hair, matching suits, attitude, groupies, and the cachét of a band member with a heroin problem. When their next album, Exit the Dragon, tanked, I cursed the drug profusely. Like Neil Young says, “Better to burn out than to fade away.” Trouble is, Urge Overkill did both.

Geffen, 1993