As Bob Mould’s go-to bassist and Superchunk’s touring bassist, Jason Narducy could be content to help drummer Jon Wurster sustain modern-rock rhythms. However, from the 1980s through the early 21st century, he led bands like Verboten (which reportedly inspired Dave Grohl) and Verbow, and Split Single proves he hasn’t lost his frontman creativity.
Amplificado, the third Split Single full-length, equals its predecessors, 2014’s Fragmented World and 2016’s Metal Frames, and almost incidentally recruits R.E.M.’s Mike Mills to play bass. (Spoon’s Britt Daniel handled bass on the first album and Wilco’s John Stirratt handled it on the second album.)
Mills adds expected muscularity and steadiness to Wurster’s consistently right-on drumming and Narducy’s crisp guitar work, and he hangs back to let Split Single’s sparkling melodicism take center stage on ten of these 11 tracks.
The eleventh, “Captain Calamity’s Crude Procession,” opens the album as a distant, shambling cousin to Keith Moon’s silly “Cobwebs and Strange,” and, immediately afterward, “Blood Break Ground” sets the tone and pace for a half-hour of thoughtfully constructed, elegantly executed modern rock with splashy hues of pop and punk.
As a singer, Narducy can insert or remove grittiness at will, whether sneering at ideological callousness in “Stone Heart World” or emanating Tommy Keene-level trebly tunefulness in “(Nothing You Can Do) To End This Love.”
Or, in “Adrift,” switching to simply strummed acoustic guitar and matching his softer hurt to yearning piano and cello played by Narducy’s former Verbow bandmate, Alison Chesley, as smoothly as if it hasn’t been more than two decades since they last recorded together.
In subtle and smart ways, Mills and Wurster recall their own pasts within Narducy’s songs and production, and it’s not difficult to detect Mould’s influence on the discipline Narducy brings to this trio. That discipline and a refusal of mere contentment make Amplificado a driven rock ‘n’ roll thrill.
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