If a toxic oligarchy is beating the world into a corner, then the least the world could ask is for a righteous group of rock ‘n’ roll stalwarts to rub its shoulders and wipe the blood from its eyes. Superchunk’s What a Time to Be Alive finds the North Carolina quartet leaping past the ropes and into the ring, not just to rally the trodden-on, but to dole out a black eye or several. An activated rage focuses and elevates the album from standard melodic post-punk to a timely, resonant mission statement. Ceiling-raising choruses and buzzing instrumentation barrel through eleven songs in just over 30 minutes — a testament to the band’s lasting synchrony, and the album’s urgency.
Superchunk have never been a subtle group, and drummer Jon Wurster, bassist Laura Ballance, lead guitarist Jim Wilbur and rhythm guitar/lead vocalist Mac McCaughan don’t buck that style here. The title track is a burst of warning and a declaration of mistrust. From a soapbox of forceful power chords, the reeking, darkness-seeking, tooth-brushing protagonist is hard to separate from Donald Trump, but what could be a straightforward condemnation casts a wider accusatory net. Indeed, promises of drainage aside, decades of people in high places have found their calling “at the bottom of a swamp.” That this peculiar moment wasn’t born without generations of enablers seems to lie at the heart of the band’s message throughout. That is, “nothing is familiar out there / but everything’s the same.”
From the old men who can’t die too soon in “I Got Cut” to the obliterators of “Erasure” — featuring backing vocals from Stephin Merritt and Katie Crutchfield — Superchunk are staking their lot against the malignant oppressors and, more importantly, with the oppressed. Later, on “Reagan Youth,” this divide is rendered in nostalgic violence: one side growing up in the image of the eponymous president, “sharpening their teeth” to play socio-economic predator; the other coming of age resisting his thrall, sharpening their own canines, not to mention tongues, in self-defense. This is not a forgiving album, but it is an inclusive one, asking for collective action from fed-up individuals against a feckless ruling class.
The band’s entreaty to “get out / meet your weird neighbors” and storm the proverbial gates is clearest on the third track, “Break the Glass.” While McCaughan incites the shattering, Wurster drops a depth charge beat under Ballance’s rubber bullet bassline and the shards of Wilbur’s power chords, charging toward the refrain’s Animal Farm-style imagery of the less-equal on the march. Tellingly, “break the glass / don’t use the door / this is what / a hammer’s for” quickly swaps out its tool of choice from hammer to hands, making a blunt solution suddenly dexterous, placing the work of change literally at the fingertips of the people and away from even a simple machine.
Likewise, where this album could be an exercise in straightforward throbbing, mad-as-hell, power pop, Superchunk plays an expanded hand. Wurster and Ballance’s staunch rhythm section props up Wilbur’s scorching, soaring electric leads, which, in turn, provide complementary breathing room for McCaughan’s scouring vocal delivery — a thrilling score for the lyrics’ echoing clarion call.
At a moment when apathy is an easy intoxicant, What a Time to Be Alive is an animated, angry, and agitated release. That it’s the unexpected break from a half-decade hiatus suggests the band wasn’t satisfied gasping and pearl-clutching from the sidelines a second longer. With its punk fury, bar band joy and stirring, universalizing intent, What a Time to Be Alive juts out a chin and shouts back at the power: “we’re free / as fuck.”