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HEAR IT: Nu Bruises Superchunk from "Indoor Living"
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MERGE RECORDS
BY JOHN COOK | when Superchunk first came out of Chapel Hill, N.C., and hit the claustrophobic, cooler-than-thou indie punk scene in 1989 with their self-titled debut album, they had all the markings of a one-trick pony. Singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan belted out in his incorrigibly adolescent voice all those things he really wished he'd signed in his classmates' high school yearbooks, while guitars crashed out fuzzy soda-pop hooks sandwiched between squalls of feedback. Pretty run-of-the-mill college band stuff, and, as with most art-punk outfits, better at high volume. But it was McCaughan's prodigious songwriting talents that quickly transformed the pony into America's golden goose of indie pop. While many of their peers were busy wallowing in self-indulgent pyrotechnics, Superchunk perfected the art of grounding fashionably raucous noise in the deliberate rigor of McCaughan's unassuming, straightforward pop. As he chants in their 1990 song "Garlic," "What goes in quiet/Comes out loud." The band's latest effort, the more polished "Indoor Living," doesn't come out quite so loud. While the intricately layered and insistently noisy cascading fuzz that has driven Superchunk thus far still makes obligatory appearances ("Nu Bruises," "The Popular Music," "European Medicine"), they've carved enough space out of the din to make room for background filler (doo-wops and dee-dees courtesy of McCaughan) and more of the keyboards, organs and other bells and whistles that made subtler appearances on their last album, "Here's Where the Strings Come In." The effect is a mixed bag: "Marquee" is a wonderful mid-tempo slow-burner that suffers from an overwrought, follow-the-bouncing-dot vocal melody; "Under Our Feet" has the pat, singsong feel of a children's song; and "Martinis on the Roof" has an oddly fabulous Caribbean feel. The most notable departure, however, is in McCaughan's voice. He seems to have tamed the wayward vocal spikes and, surprisingly, employs a studious and controlled falsetto frequently throughout the album. Whereas one could once almost hear the spit hitting the microphone as he belted out corrosive line after line on "No Pocky for Kitty," "Indoor Living" offers us McCaughan the crooner, eyes closed, hitting the high notes with a bit more effort than one should really let on. It's as if he's too busy trying to hit the notes to bother conjuring the emotion that his voice carries so well -- so well, in fact, that all his missed notes in the past were pardoned. Lyrically, McCaughan is as sharp as ever. He's still the sheik of oblique
with his heart somewhere between his throat and his sleeve, and songs like
"Burn Last Sunday," "Watery Hands," "The Popular Music" and "Nu Bruises"
manage to press all the right Superchunk buttons while easing back off the
accelerator just enough to take in some of the more nuanced pop scenery
outside the window. The falters and stumbles on "Indoor Living" are
forgivable, if only because Superchunk's been churning out controlled
feedback at a frenetic pace for eight years now (and when McCaughan's not
on the clock with Superchunk, he's likely spending time on his solo project,
Portastatic), and they've been steady thus far. As their unimpeachable indie work ethic has proved, the disappointments on "Indoor Living" aren't for lack of trying -- we can forgive them for trying a little bit too hard.
John Cook is an editorial assistant at Mother Jones. |
