Superchunk

'Songs in the Key of Yikes' unleashes a sound that is triumphant and bright in the darkness, Majesty Shredding in overdrive.

Lead single “Is It Making You Feel Something” sets the tone early with the band—McCaughan, Laura Ballance, Jim Wilbur, and Laura King— building an anthem out of the potential for joy, diving into slop-polluted waters (“now fakes are faking everything / that once made your poor heart sing”) and emerging with a pearl. “No Hope” is similarly resilient, McCaughan’s lyrics painting a crushing scene before entering its titular refrain. He repeats the phrase nine times, pauses a beat, and transforms its sentiment entirely, breaking the chant with the line “and here we are singing.” The lyric is sharp, at once a simple observation and a profound statement of being, the song’s crushing nights and endless days no less so on its account, but McCaughan’s voice finds a certain sweetness in having endured, and continuing to do so.

Paradoxically, the energy of 'Songs in the Key of Yikes' borders on and sometimes spills into euphoria, as in “Stuck in a Dream” which emerges like a mirage-born oasis between “Everybody Dies” and “Train on Fire,” a full-sprint crowd pleaser suitable for pogoing in the pit. “Care Less” is a dark, comic mirror to that energy, a garage-y jam in which an acid-tongued McCaughan seeks refuge from the storm by pretending it’s not raging right outside his door.

'Songs in the Key of Yikes' is a signature Superchunk album: visceral and timeless and catchy as hell—a cathartic balm for these oppressive times that will feel even better once we’ve figured our collective shit out.

RIYL The Clean, Dinosaur Jr, The Buzzcocks, The 3Ds, Rocket from the Crypt, Teenage Fanclub, Hoodoo Gurus