Ask any journalist who’s been pitched on a soft news feature: there are unspoken guidelines when it comes to trend stories. Take Stuck, the obtuse but earwig-churning Chicago trio that are arguably one of the most singular voices right now in underground music. Sure, Angine de Poitrine is getting all the clicks, and rightfully so, but social media needs to send some love this way. Anyway, first is THE NEWS: this ensemble made a wicked splash with a bizarre and bizarrely good debut LP, Change Is Bad, weeks after the pandemic was birthed in 2020. Second is THE COINCIDENCE, right?
The sophomore outing, Freak Frequency, was even better; a cuckoo-clock mash-up of post-punk vamping and post-hardcore tension with healthy dollops of Devo absurdity thrown into the mix. The record was one of the best of 2023, full stop. So now, there’s THE TREND, right? Well, here you have it. Stuck‘s third LP, Optimizer, extends the quirky modus operandi of the group’s previous outings, while somehow keeping the material fresh and surprising. The resulting songs are some of the best work Stuck have put to tape to date.
The nut graf of this trend story, by the way, would detail how Stuck – guitarist/singer Greg Obis, drummer Tim Green and bassist David Algrim – are a band you must pay attention to, just in case I needed to say the quiet part out loud.
These guys waste little time showing what distinguishes Optimizer from its two predecessors. They have always been inimitable at crafting weird but catchy tunes. (Think Landowner, more heart, less OCD.) However, on the new LP, they crank up the intensity in melody and harmonic texture, layering dominant melodic lines over a foundation of chords and central themes.
Does that sound too analytical? Listen to “Fire, Man”, where Obis and Algrim do an incredible job of weaving contrasting lines that could be vocal melodies on top of or under the chords that drive the song forward. They pull off similar feats on “Punchline”, where glassy refrains accent tightly wound percussion and puckish bass.
Overall, the record seems to tilt toward the catchy phrasings of more mainstream, recognizable forms of rock. On “Deadlift,” an excellent single, Obis makes his trademark sing-speak just downright addictive when he sings, in a notably higher register, “I know, I know / You’ve heard it before / I never feel so alone / When the weight hits the floor.” It’s almost—dare we say—emotional. If you think a song with gym lyrics is weak sauce, somehow not worthy or potent enough, consider how Obis twists the knife a bit to suggest a critique of toxic masculinity: “Headphones in / Eyes locked on my figure / A room full of men / Ignoring each other.” Nicely done, sir.
On the record-closing anti-anthem “GG”, Obis sounds defanged as he softly coos phrases like “It feels wrong / Moving on / Goodbye, my friend.” The song’s sugary-sweet choruses and bridges, where Obis teeters on the verge of wailing the repeated phrase “You’ve changed!” are among Optimizer‘s most unexpected and best moments. On the song, the record’s second-longest at 5:12, Obis blares out that line (by our count) 21 times and, somehow, the emotional punch of it doesn’t feel repetitive or trite. In contrast, it feels meditative, bordering almost on a kind of attempted transcendence.
Crazy stuff, right? In other corners of the LP, Obis and company seem to drop references to the jangly looseness and implied inhibitions of the Gotobeds or, three decades earlier, Pavement. The chart-conscious details don’t feel accidental. On the opener, “Totally Vexed”, the way Obis’ vocals are emoted suggests Hüsker Dü. Christ, he even throws in a wordless, Kurt Cobain-ish moan that will disarm the most studious of followers.
The aforementioned “GG” is also notable for something else Stuck continue to refine on their third LP proper: it toys with your expectations and revels in how its music keeps you guessing. The song opens with a great locked groove between bass and drums – somehow both playful and vaguely menacing, but, even though catchy choruses chew the scenery here, Obis’ sing-speak on other verses is wholly other.
He spits out short, choppy phrases, most of them packed with monosyllabic words. A good example is “On a pitch black road / Don’t know where it goes / You wake up, shotgun / Driven by someone.” While doing it, he somehow calls to mind the punchy, tightly coiled narration of Fugazi‘s Ian Mackaye, as well as the self-conscious frontman annunciations of Talking Heads‘ David Byrne.
At least one Stuck tune, “Invisible Wall” off Change Is Bad, flashes a “stop making sense” shoutout in its lyrics. But you think you’ve got this song or Optimizer figured out? Obis ends both with nearly a minute of nails-on-rust, unhinged guitar noise patterns. Think of drunken bees shrieking as their hive is shaken up for a frame of reference.
The rest of this ten-song outing is just as confounding in the best of ways. “Instakill” is, like “Deadlift”, a rock single with addictive-as-hell melodies. Predictable terrain, right? After the second verse, the trio unexpectedly launch into a lightning-fast breakdown: guitar, bass and drums all hammering herky-jerky stop/start notes in quick syncopation. Obis speed-reads the verse in a single breath: “Cutting sugar, exercising, reading, writing, organizing, mindful habits, minimizing, judgy thoughts and criticizing, if you spend life maximizing, myopically optimizing, pretty soon you’re gonna hit a WALL!” That takes nine seconds. That’s what we call a flex.
The poppy “Sicko” (whose juicy lyrics offer takes on identity) suggests Hüsker Dü in their vivacity and Pixies in their catchiness. Then, Stuck follows it up immediately by churning out a 46-second punk blast with the same three words shouted over and over: “Another friend, gone!” The name of the offering: “Less Is More”. I mean, these are the guys who titled their full-length debut Change Is Bad, so you can’t say you didn’t know what you were getting when you paid admission.
There’s hardly a weak link here. Even the opener, “Totally Vexed”, quickly sheds its sense of slightness with chops that, again, call to mind Bob Mould and Grant Hart at their finest. Obis’ often sardonic lyrics throughout Optimizer are nail-on-the-head perfect for this socio-political moment; just specific enough to punch you in the gut, just vague enough to keep the concepts fairly universal. The caliber of the band’s songwriting matches the intensity of the members’ performance. The chemistry between these guys is just top-notch.
If you told us in 2023 that Stuck would one-up Freak Frequency, we would’ve called you crazy, and for good reason. We don’t want to jinx anything, but what happens when you get a fourth point of evidence in a trend story? Guess we’ll find out.