Songs in the Key of Yikes is a youthful return for Superchunk. The veteran North Carolinian outfit are asking the right questions whilst walking the unsafe, unsure paths often taken by musicians their junior. As it turns out, unease in figuring life out isn’t reserved for the young after all, and Mac McCaughan and friends have crafted the necessary batch of anthems that encapsulate that fact; some writhe in unease, others inspire.
There are fewer noise and emo elements present than those familiar with career highs No Pocky for Kitty and Here’s Where the Strings Come In might expect. These songs are overtly consumable, retaining the pummelling dexterity often associated with Superchunk, but engaging in power pop’s sincerity; the importance of a simple structure matching the simple essence of its lyrical outbursts. It works; McCaughan sounds downright terrified whilst repeating the words “no hope” on No Hope, aching whilst repeating “I’m trying to care less” on Care Less, whilst conductive chord progressions warm in their familiarity.
But the band clearly needed to get more off of its chest, and that’s where Everybody Dies comes in handy. Punk riffs and blowout basses lead to a panic on the chorus; a rant that, yes, leads to a repetition of the title, but the mouthful McCaughan offloads is humanistic, “happy in a world of wishful thinking”, before battling with the acceptance of mortality.
Ditching panic for the amiability of an anthem is just as important. Scream-your-heart-out choruses mix with hard-driven guitars throughout the album, emerging with a light, but infectious spirit on Is It Making You Feel Something; handclaps, a repetition of the song’s title, lovely. Happy to better themselves as musicians, Superchunk surprise on the opener with a number of wacky key changes, not to mention some of Mac’s most virtuous guitar solos.
And no matter the balance lost, the subsequent injuries, there is a bygone, feel-good quality to Bruised Lung that mesmerically plays through its descending chord progressions. Your anthems won’t feel quite so authentic without the necessary energy, but Superchunk are as energetic as they ever were, and Songs in the Key of Yikes uses that energy to connect us all, intergenerationally, in our fear of living and need for something to pull us through.