How should indie rock’s coveted bands reunite? Replay hits and relearn some curios. pavement?Start where they left off and proceed barreling as follows.? Dinosaur Jr. When they reassemble their classic trio and go back to basics? Or like Dylan Carlson’s renovation earth, admit that both they and the times have changed, that the sounds of the past no longer suit them, even though their moods remain largely the same? and choose what still feels right, see if it still makes sense, and discard anything that feels like just a simulacrum at the time.that’s a wise choice loaf shooter made for the strong Reason for withdrawalis not only their first studio album in 24 years, it’s also a compelling testament to how the old you and the new you can make one hell of a tandem.
In the 90’s North Carolina’s Archers of Loaf were the quintessential Southern indie rock band. Unflinchingly honest and critical, but with witty and graceful notes. In just six years he’s released four albums (and a full-length B-side set), and they’ve gone wild in songs like gnarled jungle pop, pressing noise rock, and lilting hardcore. I was active. Husker Du‘s young country cousins sometimes experiment with samplers and sequencers in the craziest ways of the moment. Eric Bachmann’s sublime sublime baritone–a towering impassioned singer mad about love, the music industry, the good old stuff, and pretty much everything else–pieces it together, his voice an old rope that seems to break forever. It was worn out like a piece of rag.
And it did. Despite the quarrels with the mainstream and the explicit endorsement of Robert Christgau (“other indie bands should retire), Archer could not sustain his post-adolescent rage into the new millennium. changed it into a strange croon. crooked fingerThe Archers’ live reunion began a little over a decade later, but it always felt like a novice to talk about anything beyond that.The angry young man was his husband, father, and now even a lawyer, and his peers got together and cosplayed past at the occasional festival without pretending they were really the same person. at any time interviewer Asked Bachman optimistically about another Archers album, he objected:
Reason for withdrawal No pose. Instead, these 10 tightly intertwined songs do their former concerns justice. overcrowded basement— conflicts as insignificant in the age of dictators and future apocalypse as trivial in the Clinton era. Bachmann, now 52, channels old bile into new tubes here. “In the Surface Noise,” for example, is a righteous elder’s anthem for inspirational children seeking systemic change. “Coming from below / Myths, deceit, deceit,” he barks, offering both a nod of approval and a wish for more of his generation to do right. He turns backwards and inwards on “Mama Was a War Profiteer,” a beautiful song whose romantic sound deftly hides his disdain for the uncaring souls who slip through the injustices of others.