Have you ever felt like you were trapped riding shotgun in a car spinning out of control? Stuck know the feeling well. This nightmarish joyride with a malicious stranger at the wheel comes straight from the lyrics of “gg”, the closing track on the Chicago post-punk group’s latest full-length Optimizer, their second release for Exploding in Sound and third album overall. The feeling of being unable to stop a machine hurtling toward danger by its own momentum pervades across the whole record. Optimizer reports live from the front lines of a society on the decline, where every attempt toward self-improvement only locks you into a more efficient downward spiral.
As with every release from the trio, comprised of Greg Obis (vocals, guitar), David Algrim (bass), and Tim Green (drums), the central theme flows through every aspect, from the art to the music. Optimizer’s cover, designed as always by Green, depicts a classical statue trapped in buffering hell while the album’s title below it sinks along a declining trajectory. Obis’ lyrics trace the same futility, taking stock not just of the delusional patterns around him but the diminishing returns of sticking to your guns with nothing but air left in the chambers. Turning his eye for political lyrics instead to more directly social subjects, Obis sees the world as one big commercial gym packed to the gills with debt-ridden and desperate marks who only tear their gaze away from the mirror to watch the latest pitch from the latest digital huckster promising a better you at a reasonable fee. Obis doesn’t spare himself either. Written directly on the heels of the band’s tour for 2023’s Freak Frequency, the album also grapples with the personal costs of devoting your life to music while the music industry crumbles around you.
That image, of being trapped in the passenger seat careening toward disaster, came to Obis in a recurring dream. Obis only discovered this potent metaphor once he started keeping a dream journal after an encounter with Jungian psychotherapy. The same exposure led Obis to reconnect with the “mystical” element of music making. This approach resonated with Obis after the experience of touring on Freak Frequency, when he began to feel boxed in by the persona that he’d constructed for the stage. \Obis began writing songs without worrying about whether they sounded like Stuck. Freed from that self-imposed limitation, the band wrote their most ambitious and eclectic collection of songs yet, without losing the nervy, quirked-up approach to post-punk that they’d established on their first two full-lengths.
When it came time to record those songs, Stuck reached out to engineer and producer Andrew Oswald, who they knew from his work in Marble Eyed, Powerplant, and Smirk. The two had linked up to record in Oswald’s LA studio while Stuck were on tour and the results of that quick and dirty live session were enough to convince the band to tap Oswald when it came time for another full-length. Oswald suggested that they track at Electrical Audio, the legendary Chicago recording studio once run by the late Steve Albini. With Albini’s passing still fresh, the opportunity to record at Electrical took on a personal significance for Obis. Not only would it mean recording one of the city’s best sounding rooms with an extensive track record of great music, not only would it help a local institution fill out their calendar in a moment of tragic instability, recording at Electrical would also affirm Stuck’s place in a lineage of fiercely independent Chicago rock bands. Stuck are proud, in the humble way that any good Midwestern folks are proud, of embodying that archetype. Not only did Obis take over Chicago Mastering Service from Shellac’s Bob Weston when the latter decamped abroad, but Stuck’s choice of album title subconsciously mirrored Big Black’s classic Atomizer.
Optimizer continues their incorporation of synthesizers and also brings along more backing vocals, bigger choruses, and even blast beats. Oswald made his name recording extreme metal bands like Mortiferum and Caustic Wound. Though it is by no means a metal record, Oswald brought that genre’s level of tactile closed mic detail to Optimizer, resulting in the most high-definition and physically propulsive Stuck record yet. Previous Stuck albums needled you, using fast twitch guitars to keep you on edge. Optimizer goes straight for the emotional haymakers. Along with classic egg punk fare you’d expect from Stuck on songs like first single “Instakill”, Optimizer provides plenty of new twists on their formula. “Deadlift” is slower and sadder, an unsparing look at the loneliness of workout culture, “Fire, Man” a sardonic twist on All American rock anthemics.
Stuck have no illusions about solving the problem they’ve diagnosed here in short hand. On the contrary, Optimizer confronts the very idea of trying to solve life head on, drawing implicit connections between ideology and addiction. Every choice demands a sacrifice. The same instinct that drives us to simplify and streamline our lives can leave behind only our darkest and dumbest impulses. If there’s no escaping the ride we’re on, we might as well crank the dial.
photo credit Miles Kalchik
