Superstarved [Import]

Pretty much all of the musical aspects on the album sound a bit less polished and glossed over than the unremarkably sterile Perversion. The band makes a serious statement from the first snare shot and power chord of the album on the very traditionally industrial-sounding "love sex and money." It might be a simple progression but they pull it off expertly and with a lot of flourish. When I first heard the scream that closed the chorus I knew the album was going to be all I expected it to be. And Gravity Kills sticks with their basic guitar + drums + keyboards + scream formula for pretty much the whole album, stopping here and there to try something a little different or pick up a different influence. The standouts also include: "fifteen minutes," with very catchy guitars throughout, strong programming and a very powerful chorus; "forget your name," where Duddenhoffer and Firley create a fragmented wall of sound as the bridge of the song and Scheel's carefully honed scream seems to break character for a tiny moment, and you can hear a little bit of pain in there... "breakdown," with catchy drums and a guitar riff building a strong verse, with some of Scheel's best lyrics on the album; "one thing," the logical first single - the song feels very full and well-rounded, and it's got a lot of pop crunch to it; the fractured interpretation of "personal jesus" where Duddenhoffer picks up an acoustic and Firley proceeds to warp the sounds into some melody floating from a futuristic desert; "suffocate," a complex rampage of keyboards and drums punctuated with great stop-and-go guitar riffs and another of Scheel's best efforts on the album. finally, the title track, "superstarved" sees the band breaking the most new ground on the album, moving from a barely pulsating verse into a drum and bass-influenced chorus thrown into a blender with vocal distortion and Duddenhoffer's trademark guitars. The post-chorus and coda of the song has to be some of the best sounding vocals Jeff Scheel has ever done, and oddly some of the most beautifully vicious music Gravity Kills ever produced.

To be honest, Scheel still sings about some pretty dumb and bland stuff now and then, but I challenge you to find an industrial vocalist nowadays who doesn't. That's probably the only downside to the album - each song has good melody and good hooks, something regained from the self-titled debut, but unlike Perversion and Gravity Kills, Superstarved lets each song sound a little different than all the others. The album is very radio-friendly, but received little attention due to the problems the band had with the Sanctuary label. Unfortunately, these problems eventually caused the band to split in January of 2003 and the members to move onto different projects.

Although I'm sad to see them go, Superstarved is a fitting finale for Gravity Kills - they went out fighting with energy in their instruments and the unquenchable fire still stuck in Scheel's throat. This is their best album and should be a must-own for any industrial fan.

Superstarved is more of the same. The result is a recycled morass. In the years that have passed since their last album, I'd have thought there would be some sort of growth, but what I hear instead is entropy. I would not be surprised if Gravity Kills continues to be used in movie soundtracks. They have that "edgy, angry, raw sound" that works perfectly in action movies or scenes where the protagonist is harbouring thoughts of jealous rage.

However, the music is no longer fresh, and what was once really cool has become generic. And now, I can no longer let the silly, shallow lyrics slide. "Forget Your Name" is probably the worst of the bunch, with lines like "Well I forget your name, but I love you. I forget your name, but I need you, too. I forget your name, I know you're feeling the same, I forget your name, but I want you, want you."

This Shatneresque repetition of simple phrases is used throughout the album. In "Enemy," I hear "I don't want to be your enemy. Never gonna be never gonna be your enemy. I don't want to be your enemy."

The icing on the cake is "15 Minutes". The hollering goes thusly: "I want my 15 minutes of shame. I want my 15 minutes, my 15 minutes of shame."

You got it, guys.