REVIEW: Nash Kato, Debutante (Loosegroove)
- Jeremy Ashcroft
For a band supposedly ruthlessly ambitious in their pursuit of rock star fame, Urge Overkill's former members have been conspicuously absent from the record racks since their demise some three years ago. There was a one-off charity show in 1997 featuring guitarist Nils St Cyr in place of the by then departed King 'Eddie' Roeser, and Ed himself has recorded demos and toured a little with his Electric Airlines and Kimball Roeser Effect projects, but no new albums to enjoy - until now!
Evolving from the buzzing of a guitar amp - evoking the mechanical noise that opened UO's most successful release, 1993's Saturation - the first track, "Zooey Suicide," bursts out of the speakers with a sinuous feedback guitar riff and strong beat. Lyrics too - and of the following track, "Queen Of The Gangstas," - are of the same kind of camp adventure/spy story fiction spun on UO's "Sister Havana."
The poppy "Octoroon" follows, like many of the songs on the album, featuring the bright vocal backing of Veruca Salt's Louise Post, though her finest moment on the record is possibly on the next track "Cradle Robbers" -- a cautionary tale of middle-aged man's lust for younger women. "Blow" is the album's first ballad, opening with acoustic guitar and with a rich organ backgroundÅ like the rest of the album, really nicely produced by (ex-Tori Amos associate) Eric Rosse.
Influences come from many quarters, and in the case of a small boy then still called Nathan Kaatrud, the soul records played by his babysitter gave him a real love for that genreÅ proof enough being this album's title track, "Debutante". A low, low bass line, together with street-corner whispers sets the scene, sounding like something the O-Jays would have been proud of, then despite the later rock riffing the track oozes soul. It's the album's stand-out track, and a particular delight for fans of the older UO in that it marks the return of "The Supersonic Storybook's" Lynn Jordan technicolour vocal backing, plus the lyrics were penned by Blackie Onassis.
Via the riffy "Rani (Don't Waste It)" and Mexican brass of "Los Angelena" comes the ultra-smooth "Black Satin Jacket"Å a track that shows that Nash doesn't really need to cover Steely Dan (which he does on a forthcoming soundtrack album anyway), he can write his own Steely Dan songs, complete with swirling electric piano and multi-layer harmonies. The lyrics are also intriguing "on my back like a black satin jacket -- they really hate me, you ought to know".
After the slightly-Beatle-esque "Pillow Talk" comes a song that first debuted at the 1997 charity show mentioned earlier (incidently, the guitarist of that night, Nils St Cyr plays lead on this album too)
-- "Born In The Eighties" though presumably the lyric has been recently brought up-to-date with its reference to MP3s. In view of the '80s being very much the era of the yuppie, the song also features the great line "fax the hippies, we've arrived!"Finally, the album closes with another song debuted at that gig, "Blue Wallpaper," which is that strange combination of sounding slightly downbeat but hopeful at the same timeÅ like many of the great Urge songs.
In conclusion I really like the album and I'm sure both Urge Overkill fans and anyone else willing to give it a listen will be delighted too. On the evidence of this, plus the fantastic cover of William Bell's Stax tune "Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday" available as a free download at http://www.nashkato.com , who knows, the next Nash album just might be the great soul album that Urge often aspired to. I can't wait!
