Welcome to “Where to Start”! As always, we’ll be guiding you through the back catalogue of established bands - both obscure and relatively well known - and covering their best, worst and most middling cuts. We’ll be dividing the bands’ output into five categories: Start Here, Follow Up, Try This, For Fans Only and Avoid. This month: Superchunk.
Over this ongoing decade, the term “indie punk” has been a sub-genre that has gained quite a lot of traction within the musical sphere. Bands like Doe, Caves, Joyce Manor, Cayetana and Great Cynics spring to mind when this tag is brought up. Essentially, it is a genre that combines indie rock sensibilities with a punk rock drive. Yet, despite its growing wave of popularity over the last few years, it is a genre that has its roots from over the last twenty years. One of the earliest bands to marry such styles is a band who not only proved foundational for the aforementioned wave of bands, but also for the majority of acts associated with emo, melodic punk and indie rock from over the last twenty five years. That band’s name is Superchunk.
Initially forming in 1989, the band comprised of vocalist/guitarist Mac McCaughan, bassist Laura Ballance, drummer Chuck Garrison and guitarist Jim McCook. This line up would eventually change with McCook and Garrison eventually being replaced by guitarist Jim Wilbur and drummer Jon Wurster. Throughout their career Superchunk have crafted a blend of high velocity punk and emotive indie rock which would prove influential in the following decades of those respective genres. They took the octane, melodic formula HĂĽsker DĂĽ had concocted in the 80s to the next sensational level. With such a mix of driving gusto and heart on sleeve sincerity, this Chapel Hill, NC group are of those few acts who cling to the very musical fabric of one’s mind.
As well as being an under appreciated musical touchstone, the band’s dedication to DIY ethics was also something to be admired about. Although they initially co-released their first three albums via Matador Records, Superchunk eventually would take the reins and put out their albums independently through Ballance and McCaughan’s label Merge Records. Founded by the pair in the year of the band’s formation, this label would pave the way for releases by the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel, Polvo, Bob Mould, Arcade Fire, Waxahatchee and countless others. With this in mind, Superchunk’s influence have not only inspired artists musically, they were an additional cornerstone in influencing the ethics and management of one’s band.
Start Here: ‘Here’s Where the Strings Come In’
From its very core, ‘Here’s Where the Strings Come In’ transmits a sincere and fiery delivery, containing all the elements that make Superchunk great. ‘Hyper Enough’ kicks this 1995 fifth LP off with whimsical yet driving pop powered punk, a contrast to the weary words sung by vocalist Mac McCaughan. It is a song that ties in with the very transcendence of age, solidifying the band’s growth as musicians and as people when they wrote and recorded this album. This becomes even more evident as soon as the mid-tempo ‘Silverleaf and Snowy Tears’ follows the opener with a gentle sway filled verse, before unfolding into a chorus with a yearningly emotive punch. It showed off the band’s continued flexibility to resonantly convey their lyrical themes.
Track by track, this is a record that one connects with through air guitar playing and shouting the words in a bedroom. Take ‘Yeah, It’s Beautiful Here Too’ for instance; the dynamic interplay between McCaughan and Wilbur’s guitars evoke the very fire that urges you to do the aforementioned scenario. This tune and the spring powered ‘Iron On’ display the kind of fun you would want from this brand of indie rock and powerpop. The peak of this power however goes to the definitive highlight ‘Detroit Has a Skyline’. This sees Superchunk using all that anxiety and yearning to fuel what is a fist in the air driving song. Without question, this formed the very songwriting blueprint that would inspire the late 90s/early 2000s emo and pop punk boom.
Yet, as iterated in the first paragraph, the band do take time to breathe from the full throttle energy. ‘Eastern Terminal’ is welcomingly reflective and hypnotic, channeling jangly tones and a mesmerising drum pattern before it explodes with aplomb, whilst ‘Sunshine State’ has a near operatic feel that washes over you. These go hand in hand with the more punk driven tunes, creating a euphorically great feeling. Such vibes all come to fruition once ‘Certain Stars’, one of the best closing tracks ever written, cap it all off. This track starts by a slow build up to a melodious whirlwind of guitars, ear grabbing bass and vigorous drums. It signs off on an album that is fun, sincere, restless, and powerfully relatable.
Follow-Up: ‘Foolish’
There is a world weary view hanging over the band on 1993’s ‘Foolish’. From the very downtrodden notes in ‘Like a Fool’, you notice how this atmosphere contrasts with the hyperactive energy found on Superchunk’s previous records. Not to say there is a lack of it here, the energy is simply of a different kind. This is none more so than when the graciously somber opener is followed by the jaggedly anxious attack in ‘The First Part’ and bitterly entrenched drive in ‘Water Wings’. It solidifies the band’s emotional frame of mind when they wrote and recorded these songs, resulting in a record that defines the phrase “heart on sleeve”.
It should be noted that following the completion of this album, McCaughan and Ballance ended their relationship. With such context in mind, this adds a distressingly tense touch to how the songs themselves are presented. Whether it’s the devastatingly frail ‘Driveway to Driveway’, the delicate build and cathartic release in ‘Keeping Track’, the charming inelegant ‘Saving My Ticket’, or the self deprecative angst found in ‘Kicked In’, Superchunk naturally hammers home the woeful anguish. All in all, ‘Foolish’ is the band at their most genuinely heartfelt; it only takes the emotional burnt out closer ‘In a Stage Whisper’ to cement such a statement.
Try This: ‘No Pocky for Kitty’
At this point, there are three recommended roads to go down. You can’t go wrong with either the exhilarating 1993 third effort ‘On the Mouth’ or the vigorous 2010 comeback ‘Majesty Shredding’, but we’ll be shining the spotlight on Superchunk’s sophomore LP, 1991’s ‘No Pocky for Kitty’. In contrast to their first self-titled album, this powerpop gem showed a more focused and tighter band who were basically delivering their “official debut” unto the scene. Through this album, Superchunk showed the music-scape their urgent, sincere, honest and angst fuelled indie punk was a sound to be pay attention to.
There is definitely a lot to love about this twelve track shot of powerpop goodness. Rapid critical punk pop gems like ‘Skip Steps 1 & 3’ and ‘Punch Me Harder’ provide a rush for the senses, whilst the buzzsaw tinged ‘Cast Iron’ and ‘Seed Toss’ offer up optimistically bitter releases for the listener. These examples showed Superchunk taking the relatable anxious energy founded on their first album to heart punching heights. Credit to this is additionally attributed to producer Steve Albini, who had a knack at capturing a band’s raw emotive core. On the one hand, it should be noted that the group’s songwriting wasn’t 100% realised in their potential. Yet, all in all, it makes songs like ‘Sprung Like a Leak’ and soaring closer ‘Throwing Stuff’ all the more charming.
For Fans Only: ‘Indoor Living’
If there is an album which is either solid or a mixed bag, then there are a few which come to mind. There’s the most recent, 2013’s ‘I Hate Music’, a record that ticks off the boxes in familiarly solid powerpop fashion. On the other end of the spectrum, 1999’s ‘Come Pick Me Up’ and 2001’s ‘Here’s to Shutting Up’, are both albums that feel more reserved and dynamically ambitious. To get to the point, all three of these records have rifts in opinion, so any of them would be worthy enough to dissect in the “For Fans Only” section. However though, we’ll be analysing 1997 sixth LP, ‘Indoor Living’.
So why this album? Well, it was the first record where Superchunk eased up on the speed and shifted towards more subdued tones. The likes of ‘Unbelievable Things’ and ‘Marquee’ exemplify the inward reflective delivery that would influence the following records released before the band’s reduced activity from 2002 to 2009. For some fans the lack of familiar urgency to their songs would be somewhat off putting. The only songs which even get close to following their earlier tempos is ‘Nu Bruises’ and ‘The Popular Music’. Yet, instead of an outward temperament, such speedier songs have a meditative air hanging over them. Overall it shows the band had reached a point in using a “maturer” delivery and musicality.
Tying this in with the latter point, Superchunk utilise additional musical components, such as the vibraphone in ‘Martinis On the Pool’ or the organ notes in ‘Song for Marion Brown’. This showed a willingness by the band to expand the emotive delivery of their craft, thus influencing the direction of their next two albums. As previously stated, ‘Indoor Living’ does feel like a slow burn and was merely a stepping in Superchunk’s musical evolution, yet when it does click with melancholic charmers such as ‘Watery Hands’, it is a pleasant listen.
Avoid: ‘Superchunk’
When compared to the records that followed it, Superchunk’s 1990 self-titled debut is a distinctly forgettable record. Not to say it’s unlistenable, it just simply captured the band at their early promising stage before they would become the great songwriters we know them to be. Songs like ‘Slack Motherfucker’, ‘My Noise’ and ‘Not Tomorrow’ showed blueprinted hints of this potential. They showcase the whimsy, the eager proto-hooks and drive. Yet, the rest of the record doesn’t reach the heights they would achieve on the other albums, thus the self-titled ends up feeling dated and poorly produced when compared to those later releases. There’s very little chance that you’ll be humming tunes like ‘Slow’ and ‘Swinging’, so unless you’re an ambitious collector, you won’t lose any sleep from not listening to this album.
To conclude this guide, it should be pointed out that despite their far reaching influence, Superchunk’s catalogue does feel a tad under appreciated in the wider musical sphere. The band’s fervent energy and ear wrangling songwriting is too infectious to pass up. Such passion not only shows in their craft, but also in their work ethic and structure as a group. The only we ask is that you the reader digest these words and take a moment of your time to bask in Superchunk’s glorious glow.