Superchunk - Majesty Shredding

My first exposure to Superchunk came many, many moons ago via the grainy lo-fi glory of the video for the band’s 1991 ‘Fishing’ single on MTV’s much-missed 120 Minutes. My first live encounter was seeing them open up for The Posies and Teenage Fanclub – again, not exactly recently. While most stayed at the bar during their painfully brief set, a hardy few of us mounted the security barriers and screamed every last word right back at the band. When asked to sign a tour shirt at the merch stand afterwards, Mac’s response was a bashful “Won’t that spoil your t-shirt?”
 
More than mere anecdotes, these memories say a lot about Superchunk: humble, tuneful, inspiring – and too often horribly overlooked – they are a band that deserve a lot more in the way of recognition than the underground respect they engender so readily.
 
Majesty Shredding is their first LP in almost a decade, and might just be the best, most consistent and consistently uplifting record of their entire career. From the driving proto-emo of ‘Digging For Something’ through the oceanic vastness of ‘Crossed Wires’ to the mighty pop explosion of ‘Learned to Surf’, this is the adrenaline-rush record that long-term fans have always been hoping for. Somehow, with every member now in his/her forties, they’ve delivered the huge teen-anthem monster they always hinted at.
 
Throughout these eleven tracks, they retain the bittersweet lyrical touch of old, and it’s reassuringly apparent that their knack for combining the saddest and most resigned of themes with the most uplifting of guitar hooks hasn’t deserted them. While there may be no ‘Driveway to Driveway’ or ‘Hyper Enough’ here, it’s more about the album as a whole than a particular standout track; Majesty Shredding is simply a set of very good songs, expertly delivered with humour, enthusiasm and honesty by a band hitting their stride after a long time on the blocks.
 
With Merge Records having the commercial might of Arcade Fire in its armoury these days, it would be wonderful to see the head of the label (for it be Mac himself, he having founded the imprint along with bandmate Laura Ballance back in 1989) using some of it to gain exposure for the original slack motherf**kers, the Chapel Hill check-shirt champs, the mighty and masterful Superchunk.