Search - Urge Overkill :: Stull

UO at their prime

alaska | New York, NY USA | 05/14/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Most people will be familiar with the cover of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon," which featured prominently in Pulp Fiction, but it's just one of several strong tracks comprising this amazing EP. My favorite is probably "Now That's the Barclords," which is close in spirit to "Sister Havana," by far the best song on their subsequent Saturation CD. Both songs sound like distillations of the best of 70's AOR radio, swaggering, bristling with hooks, self-conscious lounge music amplified to arena-rock bombast.Carrying echoes of the Manson murders, the title track refers to a cemetery in Kansas supposedly used for Satanic rituals. The stone structure on the cover of the CD is a church without a roof. According to legend, one can stand inside the church during a rainstorm and not get wet."

Solid Urge!

J Warden | Des Moines, Iowa USA | 08/04/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great little record. There's really two Urge Overkills, in my mind - the pre-Supersonic Storybook, with crazed blues riffs and hollers, and the post-SS, which is more smooth "Neil Diamond singing for KISS" sounding. This is a bridge between the two. You're probably most interested in their take on Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" but the other five songs on this disc are just as good, if not better. Highlights for me include "(Now That's) The Barclords" which is an amazing rock (r-a-w-k) song, their cover of "Stitches" (the only time Urge Overkill ever sounded like a punk band) and the last song, the amazing mournful "Goodbye To Guyville". Because of the varied nature of the songs and the low EP price, I would recommend this as an introduction to the amazing world of UO."

Cool, quick release by a "killer" band

Sal Nudo | Champaign, Illinois | 05/26/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The polished "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon," though perhaps Urge Overkill's biggest hit, sure didn't define the band's overall sound. Urge Overkill didn't even play the song when I caught them live in 2004, probably because it prefers to rock out with abandon on stage. That's not to say that Nash Kato's smooth vocals and the lulling sound of "Girl" aren't worthy - they are. And it was good to see Urge Overkill get some well-deserved exposure on the Pulp Fiction: Music From The Motion Picture soundtrack back in the mid 1990s with the comfortably covered Neil Diamond tune. But the rest of the tunes on "Stull" much more accurately convey what UO was about, starting with the bluesy title track, a soft number (with puzzling lyrics) that gains momentum as it goes along. "Stitches," another cover tune, is total punk, and kind of fun, tongue-in-cheek punk rock at that: "I wanna kill somebody, just for fun," grovels King Roesser on the murderously played tune.



Great riffage abounds on rough-around-the-edges tracks "What's This Generation Coming to?" (great title) and "(Now That's) the Barclords" (check out the rousing sing-along chorus and great keyboard work). "Goodbye to Guyville" is more plodding than the rest of the songs on the EP, but contains a true blues feel that ends things with style.



Though the songs are great, "Stull" is kind of a weird little EP. I've often wished the band would have integrated these six top-notch songs with five or six others for a full album, but it was cool of the band to think of its fans with this quick-and-to-the-point EP."