REVIEW: Superchunk, Come Pick Me Up (Merge)
- Steve Kandell
Rare is the band that remains intact after a decade. Rarer still is one that remains valid after this long a stretch. But a band that manages to put out a ninth album that not only stands with its best, builds on the advances made on previous releases to push the songs in interesting new directions without sacrificing an iota of what made the band work in the first place? that's beyond rare. It's a statistical anomaly. And it is, I am delighted and relieved to report, Superchunk.
With nothing left to prove musically and requisite talk of commercial breakthrough long since dismissed as fantasy, it would be easy for Chapel Hill's venerable Superchunk to go the way of so many of their contemporaries and simply fade into the indie rock woodwork. They should be broken up by now, or sounding tired at best. Most of the bands who started out the decade as their peers are either long gone or in trouble. Rumors abound that Pavement may not last the month, and Sonic Youth desperately needs new gear and a better padlock. But the songs on Come Pick Me Up go far beyond complacent, and are hardly the work of a band on its last legs. Superchunk frontman Mac MacCaughan puts it best himself in "1000 Pounds" when he sings "You came through/When no one expected you to."
From Jon Wurster's synthy metallic drums that start off the album's spirited opening track "So Convinced," it is clear that the band intends to show off some new tricks. With Chicago post-rock impresario Jim O'Rourke manning the boards, Superchunk's pogo-happy punk pop tunes now boast such adornments as keyboards, strings and horns, but are used with restraint and never overwhelm the songs. The organs got a workout on the last record, 1997's Indoor Living, but nothing Superchunk has ever put out hints at the Clarence Clemons-like sax solo at the end of "Pink Clouds."
1994's Foolish, still their strongest album, was actually criticized when it came out for daring to slow things down and stress melody over crunching power chords. Each subsequent album has managed to take the songwriting advances of the one before it and add new flourishes, all without taking away from the elements that make Superchunk so simple but distinctive. Come Pick Me Up is actually a logical progression from Indoor Living, which itself was the next step from 1995's Here's Where the Strings Come In.
Lest the skeptical faithful lament that this is all just the further watering down of a once furious punk band, the new album actually rocks harder than Indoor Living, and is more consistently innovative than any band whose music publishing company is called "All the Songs Sound the Same" has a right to be.
And for all the talk about new sounds and new directions, the album's best song actually would have sounded right at home on No Pocky for Kitty. "Good Dreams" is as raucous and infectious as anything the band has ever done, from "Seed Toss" to "Without Blinking" to "Precision Auto." And they are not bringing a brass section out on the road; live, even the most ornate songs are stripped to their punk cores while Mac and bassist Laura Balance bounce around so much they make Angus Young look as sedentary as John Popper.
On any given night in any given city, countless rock bands with two guitars, bass, and drums get together somewhere and play frenzied punk pop songs about frustrations romantic or otherwise. It is not unique, and it is not brain surgery. But for some reason, and I can't even put my finger on why, Superchunk is simply better at it than any of them. See them before they break up or get tired.
