Shredding majestically with Superchunk (again)

Superchunk today.

Several things are striking about the new Superchunk album, Majesty Shredding, the seminal indie band's first in nine years, their 9th in 20 years together (no, they never broke up the band).

First, this record will remind those of us in our 30s (and 40s, too), who came-of age to this sound, just how good that sound is. In the early '90s, guitar-driven bands could fill every cubic inch  of aural space with walls of glorious fuzz tones, crashing drums and anthemic choruses. 

From pioneering indie/alt rock bands like Sonic Youth and the Pixies to later acts from Pavement to the Afghan Whigs, rock bands were loud and more. They were a jangled and chaotic yet lovely loud. The loud mess was elevated to an art form. Superchunk blasts right into Majesty Shredding like its 1992 all over again. It's a sound we've lost in the last 10 years of bands that have slimmed and simplified in many ways.

Second, other bands that can trace their roots back to the same college radio rock renaissance of the period have a lot of explaining to do -- Weezer, who just put out yet another offensive stinker called Hurley this week, comes to mind. There's no obvious aging on this record. No commercial push. For 42 minutes, Superchunk blasts through 11 songs of amazing energy for a band of 40-somethings.

I wouldn't try to justify it with the empty adjective "relevant." But it's an awesome-sounding guitar record from a band unconcerned about trends or how a vastly different rock scene might receive them. Frontman Mac McCaughan has the same adolescent whine he did on early Superchunk records On the Mouth and No Pocky for Kitty. And the energy level is nearly as high, even if the guitar playing is just a bit more polished and reserved than it was 18 years ago.

So why get excited about an album of what is really Gen Xer classic rock? Well, it's just plain good, energetic rock without a smack of pretension. In these days when even many of the good indie bands come with a little too much hipster baggage -- from bad facial hair to Hall and Oates fetishes -- it's nice to hear a band of people so interested in the music they're making, they haven't bought new clothes since high school.

Of course that lack of pretension is about so much more than wardrobe. Superchunk are an important part of that great sonic era when hardcore punk had really developed into melodic and challenging rock music, and before that sound was strangled into a raft of the limp and lame -- from Stone Temple Pilots to Third Eye Blind. In a lot of ways, the real indie rock bands of the early sound never got the popular credit they deserved (Superchunk and Pavement and even their more successful antecedents like Dinosaur Jr. and The Pixies were big bands. They were cult faves, influential and critically acclaimed, but you rarely did and never will hear them on the radio).

Suprchunk's Majesty Shredding isn't just a comeback or a throwback. It's a genuine rock record of great performances that sound remarkably fresh and energetic. If you liked the band then, you'll like them now. If you didn't listen to them then, it's time to catch up.

Check out the new video for "Digging for Something" here.