Following the 2016 presidential election, there was this kind of unsatisfying cliché going around: "We're gonna get some great protest music" or something like it. For their most recent album, and their first in four years, Superchunk have made some great protest music. And it's pretty damn satisfying, after all.
Written almost entirely between November 2016 and February 2017, What a Time to Be Alive, takes aim at some obvious targets without naming any names. It paints a dire picture of our current situation; but, throughout, there are glimmers of hope. The urgency of the music and the defiance in the lyrics convey a call to action rather than a sense of wallowing in despair.
The opener and title track sets the stage as it barrels along on trebly guitars, calling out those "who wanna take us all the way back" and who are angrily "clinging to the myth that you were cheated / the myth that you were robbed." From there, we go right into the frantic punk of "Lost My Brain" in which we're all victims of a grand, national gaslighting: "It's an intentional thing / making you wonder again and again / if you're the one that's insane." But we can help ground each other in reality: "So grab a hold and let's make a chain."
And there's lots of that on What a Time to Be Alive. "Break the Glass" is classic Superchunk power pop that gets an assist on backing vocals from A Giant Dog's Sabrina Ellis. It casts our current climate as an emergency; but as Mac McCaughan and Ellis sing, "Break the glass / Don't use the door / This is what our hands are for," you get the sense that people have it within their power to change things. Similarly, "Erasure" (this time, featuring Katie Crutchfield and Stephin Merritt) counters powerful attempts to stifle oppressed or minority voices with statements like "The haunt you want to kill won't die," "We don't just disappear," and -- simply -- "we're still here."
Early single "I Got Cut" comes in on a hail of feedback; and McCaughan delivers one of his most biting lyrics, waiting for the days when the old, white men making decisions on everyone's behalf "fade like vapors, you actual traitors / to the ones you say you love."
The song most relevant to what I mentioned at the beginning of this, though, is probably "Reagan Youth." In two minutes of noisy punk, McCaughan sings of being a suburban kid in the early 80s who was inspired by the anarchist punk band. The song references the beginnings of both Reagan Youth ('81) and Superchunk ('89!). It also warns not to stop with just protest songs: "Regan Youth taught you how to feel / Regan Youth told you what was real / But to tell the truth / There was more than one Reagan Youth." While some kids were pumping their fists and singing anarchist anthems, other kids were working their way up the political ranks.
What a Time to Be Alive is Superchunk's noisiest, angriest, and most hopeful album in a while. It contains punk rock burners and power pop gems. The title track admonishes those who hoped for a different outcome in 2016, "We can't pretend to be surprised;" and if the band have anything to say about it, we won't be caught slacking off again.
What a Time to Be Alive is out now on Merge Records.
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