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Gravity Kills - Superstarved* Review

Erich Becker | Tempe, Arizona United States | 04/17/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Gravity Kills broke into the music scene with their high powered hit "Guilty" which propelled their debut album up the charts. The song was also featured playing in the background of the David Fincher hit Se7en. GK's self-title album spawned a serious of singles that found their way onto soundtracks and remix albums. The Mortal Kombat soundtrack featured a demo (and edited) version of "Goodbye" while the Lords of Acid created one of their best known remixes with their song "Down," and an even cool remix was released from the song "Blame."When Gravity Kill's second album, not counting the remix cd Manipulated which featured no new work from the trio, came into stores it was met with high expectations, but those who expected Gravity Kills to escape the Sophomore curse were wrong, and Perversion was a major disappointment to some die-hard GK fans.Which brings us up to their third release, Superstarved which puts the band back into the so-called saddle that they rode so high upon with Gravity Kills. Superstarved is more of a mix between the guitar-laden first album, and the techno/industrial influenced second release. Superstarved surprising first single "One Thing" is so reminiscent of "Guilty" that you might even mistake them from coming off of the same album together."Love, Sex, and Money" sounds eerily like a Marilyn Manson song even by the title. The cover song "Personal Jesus" makes you wonder what CD you actually inserted into your stereo with it's very country guitar, that skips away and makes way for a very hard guitar. Earlier last year Gravity Kills posted demo versions of "Enemy" and "Personal Jesus" for fans to download. A demo version is an unmixed song, and it shows. The new tracks differ quite a bit from the originals even by name. A track named "Shake It" was also demo-released, but it doesn't have appeared to make it onto the final album.All in all the CD will make you somewhat forget about Perversion and remember how good Gravity Kills was. While the albums only fault is sounding maybe a bit too much like the previously mentioned discs, that is nothing hard to come by for true fans of the band.If you were a fan and lost track of the band, never have been a fan, or have been waiting for a new album from these guys for a long time, you won't be let down, Superstarved is an awesome album.-Erich Becker wonders what it would be like to be super-starved."

This is the best album I've heard in a long time!

Amy Richards | Columbia, MO United States | 04/03/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have been a fan of Gravity Kills since their self-titled debut album, and I have met the band many times. If you like industrial rock, nu metal, and techno, but are still a devoted fan of rock and roll, CHECK OUT GK! Fans have waited for this album for a long time, and GK has definitely not disappointed us. Superstarved is an incredible album from start to finish. Although Jeff Scheel's vocals have been compared to Trent Reznor's, don't be fooled. Jeff Scheel is a MUCH better singer and songwriter! His voice is much clearer and melodic. Plus, Scheel and Gravity Kills have an uncanny ability to write songs that have obvious personal meaning, but the lyrics also deftly and powerfully touch listeners simultaneously. "Love, Sex, and Money" seems to be about the enticing, yet dangerous world of materialism. "Take It All Away" seems to be an angst-ridden song about a relationship gone astray due to selfish intentions. "15 Minutes" is one of those wonderfully ambiguous songs that could mean many different things. The lyrics during "Forget Your Name" tell listeners that "everything's fake and nothing is real." "Enemy" seems to be about the desire to remain friends with someone who's slipping away. "Breakdown" is an emotionally-charged track (my third favorite) about a friend who is having some problems and wanting to help them. "Beg and Borrow" (THE BEST TRACK ON SUPERSTARVED) seems to be a evaluation of the way that so many people fall into hollow materialism and find their world crashing around them. It exemplifies GK's masterful ability to artfully flow from the slow and more mellow to more high energy and anger. "One Thing" (my second favorite song) is a hypnotizingly melodic track decribing the spiritual void and agnosticism that many people feel. "Personal Jesus" is a intense, more electronic, rockin' remix of the Depeche Mode original. "Wide Awake," I'm sorry to say, is the song that I like the least on Superstarved. Lyrically, it gets repetitive, although it has a great melody. "Suffocate," which is full of a great drum beats (thank you Matt Brad Booker) and cool synthesizer riffs (thank you Doug Firley), seems to be talking about all of the futile, deadly attempts that some people make to hide themselves away from reality. The title track, "Superstarved," is a song describing how one person in a relationship has been reduced to a "silhouette," while the other has internalized the problems, letting them become paralyzing. All in all, Superstarved is a great relief to fans of GK. It brings a mesmerizing blend of rock, metal, and techno with lots of absolutely profound, sagacious lyrics to a "superstarved" music scene."

Gk's last and best...

funked_up | virginia beach, va | 04/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Throughout the course of their career, Gravity Kills always took a lot of heat for whatever people wanted to dis them about. And they worked hard for everything they did. It culminated in "Superstarved," their last CD, which showed real growth from the band in pretty much all facets of their music.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."