Paw
Dragline

THE REVIEW

It's hard to be the best among the second tiers in the early '90s grunge-crossover jungle. The prime movers and big names firmly held the scepter, having the strut and charisma to remain center stage. Meanwhile, clones and craftsmen churned out by the majors advanced relentlessly, ready to fulfill the consumption driven by MTV. That's why excellent bands like Paw fell into oblivion.

Skilled and captivating in generating guitar storms of roaring impressionist power, but lacking the intensity that would soon bring luck to contemporaries like Tool and God Machine. Meanwhile, their sumptuous melodic vein, interwoven with strong strands of classic American rock, which emerged here and there, wasn't enough to rival with Blind Melon and Stone Temple Pilots and break through the wall of a mainstream that was becoming increasingly homogeneous. So, while Tool, with the success of "Undertow," could slowly prepare the leap in quality with the masterpiece "Aenima," the partial commercial flop of "Dragline" pushed Paw to seek some shortcuts with the subsequent "Death to traitors," resembling a tough version of Soul Asylum but ultimately digging their own grave.

Formed in Kansas by singer Mark Hennessy and guitarist Grant Fitch at the beginning of the decade, they got noticed with a demo produced by "Mister Nevermind" Butch Vig, and were even celebrated by Newsweek as the "new Nirvana", partly due to the desperate lyricism permeating their early compositions. The wheel didn't turn in their favor, but re-listened today, "Dragline" remains an album capable of competing on equal terms with many of the heavyweights released in that happy 1993. Its mixture is given by a tight assault borrowed from Nirvana's "Bleach", capable of sliding down the slopes of a lush roots rock not unlike Pearl Jam's "Vs", all interspersed with sculptural arpeggios à la Jane's Addiction. Indeed, Farrell and Navarro's band is the guiding light, with the same taste for crafting complex and elaborate compositions like "Couldn't Know", "Pansy", or "Veronica", with harmonic passages generating dizzying strumming, tribal effervescence and lively lysergic splashes. Other classics abound, starting with the anthemic "Gasoline", "The Bridge", "One More Bottle", and "Jessie", underpinned by an ever-present pulsing bass and fueled by the charismatic and possessed vocalist's tales of pure teenage angst. And what about the sinuous "Lolita", introduced by a malevolent Pixies-like bass line, perfectly combining the visionary nature of sixties rock with the execution power of grunge? A worthy conclusion to a splendid work is the apocalyptic "Hard Pig", a torrid and squared blues boogie that amplifies into an atmosphere of leaden surrealism.

Paw now bivouac who knows where between Jack Daniel's and pool games, lost in that rural and hallucinatory America they described within these grooves. Paraphrasing a slogan of the Furiosi (Cagliari ultras) for Valery Melis (a soldier and fan who became ill in Kosovo due to depleted uranium and then died) that David Suazo showed the cameras after scoring one of his 102 goals in the rossoblù shirt: many have forgotten them, we will not forget them.