Superstarved (stylized as superstarved★ or superstarved*) is the third studio album by

Gravity Kills Gravity Kills was an American industrial rock band from St. Louis, Missouri. Their music was described by one critic as "a blending of eerie industrial rock with a pop-infused melodic chorus and a bit of hard-core head banging."Jacquie Kubin, ...

, released March 19, 2002. The album is described as "more riff-oriented" and "grindier" and shares similarities to nu metal music.

Production

The band signed with major record label

Sanctuary Records Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and is as of 2013 a subsidiary of BMG Rights Management solely for reissues. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest m ...

in New York in March 2000 before the release. According to guitarist Matt Dudenhoeffer, approximately 30 songs were written for the album, of which about 12 were likely make it to the finished album. "Eclipse", "Shake", "Photograph", "Monsters & Astronauts", "Naked", and "Hollow" were going to be on the album,
Gravity Kills sign into Sanctuary Records and forthcoming third album. but ended up not being included. Jason Slater was going to be producing the album, but did not. The band originally recorded the cover version of Depeche Mode's "

Personal Jesus "Personal Jesus" is a song by English electronic music band Depeche Mode. It was released as the lead single from their seventh studio album, '' Violator'' (1990), in 1989. It reached No. 13 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 28 on the ''Billbo ...

" in 1999, then released it in 2002.

Songs

"Love, Sex, and Money" was the last song written for the album. The video for the song was in shot in Seattle,

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

with live footage of the band performing on the Superstarved Tour. Jeff Scheel says that "Forget Your Name" was his first experiment from switching from

Digital Performer Digital Performer is a digital audio workstation and music sequencer software package published by Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) of Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Ancestry In 1984, Mark of the ...

Logic Audio Logic Pro is a digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab which later went by Em ...

. It was described by a reviewer as an "angst ridden 'love song' in the loosest sense."
Cory Q, Superstarved by Gravity Kills. "Beg and Borrow" is the most emotional song on the album. Scheel describes it as lonely, emotional and desperate. On August 18, 2011, Scheel uploaded his piano cover of "Beg and Borrow" on

SoundCloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming s ...

as a free download.
Jeff Scheel releases a newer version of an old Gravity Kills song 'Beg and Borrow'. This was the first time in nine years that he had created a studio song and a studio cover.

Track listing

Album's cover art and name

The star on the album's cover is in connection with the album's name, "superstarved", which designer Craig Wagner created for Gravity Kills's album. The word refers to the condition of extreme malnutrition. The name came from a comment on what the band went through changing record labels between their second and third albums.

Personnel

;Gravity Kills * Jeff Scheel - Lead vocalist, lead vocals * Matt Dudenhoeffer -

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

* Doug Firley -

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

* Brad Booker - drums ;Additional musicians *

Julian Beeston Julian Beeston is an English musician, mainly noted for his time in the electronic groups Nitzer Ebb and Cubanate. He has spent time as a remixing engineer working on artists such as Bob Marley and Billy Idol. More recently, he has worked a ...

- programming * Matt Dudenhoeffer - backing vocals on "Fifteen Minutes" *

Richard Fortus Richard Fortus (born November 17, 1966) is an American guitarist. He has been a member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he has recorded one studio album, since 2001. Fortus has also collaborated extensively with The Psychedelic Fur ...

- guitars on "Wide Awake" and "One Thing" *

Charles Levi My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (often shortened to Thrill Kill Kult or TKK) is an American electronic industrial rock band originally based in Chicago and founded by Groovie Mann (born Frankie Nardiello) and Buzz McCoy (born Marston Daley). ...

- bass on "Superstarved" * Derek Geisser - guitar on "Enemy" * Bob Dog Caitlin - sitar on "Take It All Away" ;Production * Produced by Martin Atkins and Gravity Kills * Engineered by Julian Beeston * Mixed by Julian Beeston and Martin Atkins, except "One Thing" (Chris Greene and Martin Atkins) at ASI Chicago * Written by Gravity Kills, except "Personal Jesus" (

Martin L. Gore Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austra ...

) and "Wide Awake" (Gravity Kills and Richard Fortus) * Photos by Steve Truesdell * Gravity Kills logo and star designed by Craig Wagner * Artwork and design by

John Bergin John Bergin is a writer, illustrator, designer, and musician. As Art Director at Lakeshore Records. He has created and designed packaging for soundtrack albums such as ''Stranger Things,'' ''Drive, Mandy, Mr. Robot, Napoleon Dynamite, The Walki ...

References

{{Authority control Gravity Kills albums 2002 albums Sanctuary Records albums