Every once in a while, North Carolina indie OGs Superchunk like to dress up as another band for Halloween.In 2020, for instance, Superchunk went out as goth greats the Sisters Of Mercy, or at least they covered the Sisters’ “Alice” on a Halloween 7″.
It’s been a little while, but now Superchunk are back with another one, and they’ve got help.Superchunk’s new Halloween 7″ is a split with their recent tourmates Quivers, the Melbourne band who recently signed with Merge and released the singles “Apparition” and “Pink Smoke.” Superchunk, who released their own single “Everybody Dies” earlier this year, have taken on Dead Moon, the much-missed Portland power trio.
Dead Moon were once an institution, but drummer Andrew Loomis passed away in 2016, and frontman Fred Cole died a year later.Both of those losses absolutely suck.
If you’re at a show and you see someone in a Dead Moon shirt, you’re at the right show.Superchunk cover “Fire In The Western World,” an absolute banger from Dead Moon’s 1992 album Strange Pray Tell, and they attack the song with fiery urgency.
As for Quivers, they’ve set themselves the very difficult task of covering “Pass The Ratchet, I Think I’m Goodkind,” the 11-minute epic that opens Yo La Tengo’s 2006 album I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.A full cover of that song wouldn’t fit on one side of a split 7″, but Quivers have tightened it up, keeping the song’s psychedelic harmonic swirl but making it a little more bite-sized.
Below, listen to the Superchunk and Quivers covers, as well as the original Dead Moon and Yo La Tengo songs.The Superchunk/Quivers split is out now on Merge.
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