Indie Legends Superchunk Coming to the Independent on October 21
Photo Credit: Alex Cox
Upon seeing an album with track titles like “Care Less,” “No Hope” and “Everybody Dies,” the baseline assumption would be that the listener is in for a miserable experience.
In fact, “Song in the Key of Yikes”—the latest Superchunk album that is home to those songs—is the farthest thing from a bummer record. It’s an absolutely fucking ripping good time and one more reminder why the North Carolina band is a beloved indie rock institution.
Thematically, the group’s chief songwriter, Mac McCaughan, doesn’t cover his eyes or stick his head in the sand for the album—we are living in dark, authoritarian times and the lyrics reflect those miseries. But underpinning those narratives is a fierce, ragged collection of up-tempo, guitar-heavy anthems, forcefully emphasizing that while the world might be shit, we don’t have to be happy about it.
“An important aspect of our music has always been that contrast between the content and the form,” said McCaughan. “Some artists can make music that’s both dark lyrically and dark musically, but we’re never gonna sound like The Birthday Party—that’s just not who we are. We make this kind of loud guitar music. The lyrics reflect reality—we’re not trying to put a happy face on everything, but at the same time, music can be this escape, and so we want to play the kind of music that can get people into a different place for a moment.”
Superchunk will offer that place of escape for San Francisco fans on Tuesday, when the band plays at the Independent. In addition to performing tunes from “Songs in the Key of Yikes,” the band will dip into its lengthy catalog, which dates back some 35 years to their self-titled debut album (which includes the song “Slack Motherfucker,” a generational anthem that helped give rise to the “slacker rock genre”.)
The band took a lengthy hiatus in the early 2000s, allowing for McCaughan to pursue his other project, Portastatic, but open returning with their 2010 album, “Majesty Shredding,” Superchunk has been remarkably and brilliantly consistent. Despite being more than three decades in the business, the band sounds as vibrant, vital and urgent as ever.
“Songs in the Key of Yikes” starts off with “Is It Making You Feel Something,” a propulsive indie rock number that plants its foot firmly on the pedal and doesn’t relent at any point. That kind of taut, manic energy remains throughout the album.
Again, belying their mordant titles, tracks like “Everybody Dies” and “Care Less” are blistering anthems of defiance, with the former featuring scorching, through-the-roof choruses and the latter specializing in chunky, heavy riffs burnished with white noise surroundings.
Adding to the underlying sense of oppositional potency are McCaughan's impassioned vocals. He’s always had a boyish, lilting cadence and his deliveries on this album imbue each track with a youthful rascality. His unique singing gives lines like “Yeah, I'm a train that's on fire/ Drag me away,” (from “Train on Fire”) a little extra boost of irascibility—an ever-present middle figure to punctuate his dispatches of distaste.
“I’ve never really loved the sound of my voice—I have to write words to sing, but I always thought of my voice as more of just another melody happening,” said McCaughan. “I wish I could sing like Torres or Sharon Van Etten, but I’m not that kind of vocalist. I do think we’re making efforts to not bury my vocals as much like we did on our early albums, but for the most part, we’re just trying to make do with what we have.”
McCaughan’s modesty notwithstanding, his voice is a trademark of sorts for the band, a reminder that Superchunk have and always will be at the forefront of the indie rock scene. That’s due in large part to McCaughan’s other job—as the co-founder of Merge Records, one of the most hallowed labels in the business. Along with consistently churning out amazing releases on an annual basis, Merge is responsible for foundational indie rock records like “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” “69 Love Songs” and “Funeral,” among countless others.
“When we started Merge, we really thought we were just joining a bunch of people who were doing the same thing,” said McCaughan. “We just wanted to be K Records or Amphetamine Reptile Records—a place to put out our friends' singles or tapes. That’s all we had in mind and it wasn’t until we put out a few albums from bands outside of North Carolina that we realized something might be different.”
Few bands have that kind of legacy to contend with and uphold, but as evidenced by “Songs in the Key of Yikes,” Superchunk have no interest in mining the past or basking in passive nostalgia. They’re still doing their thing, angry and righteously pissed off. It’s an approach we should all appreciate right now.
Show Details:
Superchunk with Case Oats
Where: The Independent
When: 8 p.m., Tuesday, October 21
Tickets: $38, available here.