Songs in the Key of Yikes

When North Carolina indie stalwarts Superchunk emerged from a nine-year hiatus in 2010, they forged a dignified way for pogo-happy indie bands to channel the sprung energy that made sense in their twenties into ideas that make sense in their forties and fifties. On the other side of starting to raise families and pursue other work, the entire notion of what it meant to be in a band at such a big age became both text and subtext and set a gold standard for the second time in their existence. On their fifth album since regrouping, Superchunk continue to find ways to meet the moment while never sounding like anything but themselves. Just as 2018’s *What a Time to Be Alive* mined Trump 1.0-era righteous fury for some of the most urgent music of their career and 2022’s *Wild Loneliness* used the pandemic’s isolation to contemplate environmental, societal, and emotional ruin, *Songs in the Key of Yikes* embraces and embodies the nauseous mix of despair and nihilism and abandon that defines 2025. At first glance, the tracklist reads like a cry for help from singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan (“No Hope,” “Everybody Dies,” “Climb the Walls,” etc.), but the eminently catchy “Care Less” moves past an easy slogan to serve as an operator’s manual for anyone who is both trying to stay informed about the ongoing collapse while trying to find space to tune it out and make use of whatever time is left (“Don’t make me remember/What I can’t forget”). “Is It Making You Feel Something” (which joins the pantheon of question-titled Superchunk songs alongside “Why Do You Have to Put a Date on Everything,” “Does Your Hometown Care?,” “What Do You Look Forward To?,” and “The Question Is How Fast”) feels like an argument for the role of art, any art, amid the spiral. For all of Superchunk’s remarkable longevity and consistency, *Yikes* marks the band’s first on-record personnel change in 34 years with the departure of seemingly omnipresent drummer Jon Wurster and Laura King stepping in to lay down the sickness. Yet even a potentially convulsive change like this barely feels like a ripple in the final product, only reasserting Superchunk’s knack for not just weathering storms but being a refuge from them.

After the lush, expansive contours of 2022’s Wild Loneliness, the Chapel Hill indie lifers sharpen their hooks on an energizing collection of punk-tinged power pop.

Chapel Hill's finest Superchunk return with another ten songs of righteous, catchy anger and dark humor. It's one of the best records of their reunion era.