Head Trip in Every Key
Twenty years ago, Elvis Costello wanted to bite the hand that fed him; on Superdrag's second major-label album, frontman John Davis, a former Buzz Bin baby, bares his own teeth. The band rings hardest and truest on "Do the Vampire," a Who-like yelp against backlash from radio and hometown fans, and "Bankrupt Vibration," which slaps the dead face of current "alternative" radio. A completely unpretentious leap forward from 1996's excellentRegretfully Yours,Head Trip in Every Keystands on the earlier album's hard-pop base while adding acoustic guitars, strings, horns, raga-rock elements, and echoes of everything fromOdessey and Oracle, T. Rex, and Matthew Sweet to the first Boston album.--Rickey Wright