Album Review: Superchunk - "Wild Loneliness"

 

First album in four years from alt-rock veterans Superchunk following on from their ferocious What A Time To Be Alive which was a scathing indictment of the Trump regime. It's safe to say that prior to rediscovering the band through that record, I was a bit out of the loop with them having not really listened to much of their stuff since their imperial phase around No Pocky For Kitty, Tossing Seeds etc.

So it's safe to say that Wild Loneliness has come as a bit of a curveball as someone who remembers the group as aggressive proto-grunge growlers - this is certainly the sound of a much more melodic Superchunk with the jangly Teenage Fanclub style guitars and vocal harmonising on the choruses. Even more surprising is that they carry it off pretty well with the likes of Endless Summer and City of the Dead having a nice summery feel to them similar to the vibe of Cornershop's excellent England Is A Garden album a couple of years back while This Night with its soaring horns and the gentle Set It Aside show how much this band have evolved. However, there's still a quiet anger seething underneath the gentle exterior of some of the tracks like Highly Suspect although the big irony is that the track on which they come closest to the trademark Superchunk sound, Refracting, turns out to be the weakest one on here, a burst of discordancy which doesn't really sit well with the gentle feel of the album and just comes across as a bit if an unwelcome interruption really.

There's a pretty impressive guestlist here as well with Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley from Teenage Fanclub and Mike Mills from REM showing up to help out and overall it fits the new more melodic Superchunk style well. Make no mistake, this might not be quite what you're expecting from the band if you're a music fan of a certain vintage but there's a tunefulness to Wild Loneliness that really makes it stand out as one of the better albums I've heard this year. Definitely the sound of a band growing old gracefully.

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NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

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