No single trend in 1990s indie rock can be traced back to Archers of Loaf. They weren't quite "lo-fi," they weren't quite "slackers," their guitars weren't quite "noisy" and their drums weren't quite "mathy." Eric Bachmann's vocals were gritty and visceral, but his lyrics were oblique and cerebral. Archers of Loaf thrived on subtle contradictions, on purposeful vagaries, on tentative gestures delivered with utmost conviction. It comes as neither a surprise nor a disappointment that this much-needed remaster of the band's 1993 debut, Icky Mettle, isn't particularly revelatory: Everything is still right there in the songs themselves.
It seems fitting that Archers of Loaf's first reunion show this year was not a high-profile festival appearance, but rather an unannounced "opening" slot for now-labelmates the Love Language at a mid-sized rock club. Like fellow North Carolinians Superchunk, Archers passed on interest from a major label during the 90s "alternative" gold rush, signing instead with independent label Alias (then home to Yo La Tengo and the Loud Family). They released increasingly adventurous records for five years, and broke up with minimal drama or fanfare. This, the first in a series of planned deluxe reissues from Merge, perfectly captures the energy of the band's early days, from their slapdash first singles to the scrappy brilliance of Icky Mettle itself to the more honed recordings that followed.
Released on the heels of some well-received singles and a buzzed-about performance at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York, Icky Mettle was a hotly anticipated debut for the pre-Internet age. To say it starts on a strong note would be an understatement; opener "Web in Front" is quite simply among the finest indie rock songs ever written. That a song whose lyrics are all but impossible to parse literally comes off as so immediate and relatable speaks both to Bachmann's skill with words-as-sounds, and to his bandmates' ability to put force and nuance behind his voice. Much of the credit here belongs to guitarist Eric Johnson, whose melodic and fluttery guitar parts seem to hammer the very emotional notes that Bachmann's words intentionally skirt.
"Web in Front" finds its near-equal in "Wrong", B-side to the band's first single and perhaps their most compelling study in self-effacing aggression. It is only in the second half of the song's ascendant chorus that Bachmann admits, "I do not think that you could like me anyway/ Because you are superior in all aspects to me," echoing the first half of the chorus but inverting the previously uttered "inferior." This self-fulfilling fatalism is at the heart of innumerable rock songs by innumerable bitter young men, but it is rarely expressed with the introspective clarity that Bachmann displays throughout Icky Mettle.
The second disc of Merge's reissue compiles the excellent Vs. the Greatest of All Time EP and the early singles that were previously included on the Speed of Cattle compilation. The five songs from Vs. the Greatest of All Time hint at the more spacious and muscular sound that the band would cultivate on their sophomore LP, Vee Vee, while early 7" versions of "Wrong" and "Web in Front" are disjointed and flaccid previews of their album counterparts. The slightly claustrophobic sonics and consistent midtempo clip of Icky Mettle can be daunting at times, and the textural variety of this bonus material makes for a welcome change of pace.
The ramshackle sound of Icky Mettle earned Archers of Loaf comparisons to Pavement (and the occasional dismissal as a Pavement ripoff act), but Bachmann's earnest self-consciousness is miles away from Stephen Malkmus's arch self-awareness. The strain in Bachmann's voice as he sings "clearly, this is your loss" in prescient hipster diss "Plumb Line" is devastating, a crack of self-doubt that masterfully undermines the pointed decisiveness of Bachmann's language. Uncertainty has never sounded so much like a rallying cry.
