Copyright 1995 The Washington Post
                              The Washington Post

                    November 20, 1995, Monday, Final Edition

SECTION: STYLE; Pg. D07; PERFORMING ARTS

LENGTH: 229 words

HEADLINE:  Superchunk

BYLINE: Rob Pegoraro

BODY:

Superchunk  plays what you might call "classic" alternative rock: lots of
drone and fuzz in the guitars on top of rhythms as regular as white
lines on an interstate. Wednesday's show at the Black Cat never wandered
far from that time-tested concept.

This Chapel Hill, N.C.-based indie-rock quartet takes a certain pride in its
own lack of pretense; singer Mac McGaughan's first words to the audience 
were: "All right, this is the first song we're going to play tonight." 
For the next hour,  Superchunk  delivered satisfying, if limited, 
variations on its drums-bass-guitar blueprint; only a few older songs, 
like the hard-core-tempo "Sick to Move," didn't fit the mold. While 
catchier songs, like the band's current, quickly memorable single, "Hyper 
Enough," demanded attention, others blended together -- especially a few 
songs from the band's new album, which lacked the studio versions' 
experiments with keyboards and strings.

Superchunk  isn't a soloists' band -- you're just as likely to notice the
drum fills beneath a guitar solo as the guitar itself -- and in the poor 
sound mix, McGaughan's voice became the least prominent instrument, sounding
small and lost in the din. He made more of an impression with
between-song patter, particularly when he employed most of the seven
dirty words in one sentence aimed at a disagreeable member of the audience.