On first spin, Chumped’s self-titled EP didn’t leave much room to think about the future. Once it had you in its giddy grasp, the ramshackle guitars and Anika Pyle’s melodies were too sweet, too immediate to allow anything as big as that to intrude. But, over time, things changed. It became about escaping, about routines and looking for a spark or something different.
‘Teenage Retirement’, their first full-length, continues the theme. It’s a more considered whole than its short, sharp predecessor but still finds the quartet - completed by guitarist Drew Johnson, drummer Dan Frelly and bassist Doug McKeever - frank and philosophical amid the singalongs.
They’re still pottering along in a mid-20s funk - often enjoying it, too - attended by early Weezer and Superchunk records and a sense of optimism with a few dents in it.
“We drank and we talked shit and I was happy,” Pyle sings on Name That Thing. It’s a simple sentiment, but one tinged with anxiety and regret in this instance. “Tried so desperately to hold on to the feeling of being young, of being sure, of being lucky. ‘Cause I get down and it’s so easy to feel nothing,” she concludes.
They’ve found a couple of slower gears too, with Long Division and December Is The Longest Month stopping for breath in a manner that the EP did only in its final throes. It’s a shift that suits some of Pyle’s more impassioned lyrics and also one that, by removing the constant, driving momentum, shines a light on their songwriting skills. They pass the test with a laconic wave.
Chumped are a band who, by reinforcing just how much fun it can be to get a little lost while the years tick away, exist on two levels: a surface that’s full of rapid fire hooks and a deeper recess for all the worry that’ll follow. This record, whether you’re enjoying that stage of your life right now or looking back on it with grey at your temple, is great company and another suggestion that Chumped will soon be a household name in the punk scene.
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