Superchunk Review
Superchunk's "Leaves In The Gutter"
When I started writing music reviews more than nine years ago, I received albums in CD form. Anywhere from five to thirty per week. They’d arrive in packages and padded mailers, filled with discs and lots of paper: label propaganda, clippings from other media outlets. Sometimes there would be stickers or other goodies to ostensibly increase the chances of my giving the album good review. One label always put Sour Patch Kids in their mailers. My girlfriend used to say to people who asked: “it’s always Christmas at our house” meaning that packages in the mail are gifts themselves.
Nine years ago, a music reviewer looked to the mail with hopeful eyes.
Not so much anymore. Very few albums come in material form. Not more than 10%. I get a .zip file of the recording from my editor or the label PR rep. Packages are rare anymore (in fact, only the most amateurish and unappealing arrive this way). Format is streamlined. I get to download and unpack the .zip file and within seconds there are a dozen or more .mp3 files in a folder that I end up putting into my iTunes folder and listen at my discretion.
My hands touch nothing other than a keyboard.
Why this prelude with Leaves In The Gutter? What’s curious about Superchunk’s reviewed work is that they’re calling it an “EP” in that arcane descriptor, an “Extended Play”. Extended play of or off of what? Where there are hardly album proper anymore, the EP is impossibly less valuable to delineate.In another nine years there will be merely packets of tracks intended to be played at random.
That isn’t to say that what Superchunk is offering on their five song packet is anything short of amazing pop/indie rock songwriting. I haven’t loved this band this lovingly in a very long time. Each song reminds me of what it was that drew me to them in the first place.
http://www.kevchino.com/review/superchunk/leaves-gutter/1862
Posted: August 25th, 2009 under Music Reviews.