STUCK ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM & NORTH AMERICAN TOUR | OPTIMIZER OUT MARCH 27 VIA EXPLODING IN SOUND
EXPLODING IN SOUND
“Chicago post-punk purveyors” (Crack) Stuck announce their new album, Optimizer, out March 27th via Exploding in Sound, and share the video for the lead single, “Instakill.” In conjunction, they announced a North American tour. Optimizer, the third album from the trio of Greg Obis (vocals, guitar), David Algrim (bass), and Tim Green (drums), reports live from the front lines of a society on the decline, where every attempt toward self-improvement only locks you into a more efficient downward spiral. The album is their most ambitious and eclectic collection of songs yet, without losing the nervy, quirked-up approach to post-punk that they’d established on their first two full-lengths.
Optimizer‘s cover, designed by Green, depicts a classical statue trapped in buffering hell while the album’s title below it, sinks along a declining trajectory. Obis’ lyrics trace the same futility, taking stock not just of the delusional patterns around him but the diminishing returns of sticking to your guns with nothing but air left in the chambers. Turning his eye for political lyrics instead to more directly social subjects, Obis sees the world as one big commercial gym packed to the gills with debt-ridden and desperate marks who only tear their gaze away from the mirror to watch the latest pitch from the latest digital huckster promising a better you at a reasonable fee. Obis doesn’t spare himself either. Written directly on the heels of the band’s tour for 2023’s Freak Frequency, the album also grapples with the personal costs of devoting your life to music while the music industry crumbles around you.
This is apparent on today’s quirked-up single “Instakill,” which deals with the predatory nature of social media ads. In the song’s opening lines, Obis sings: “I saw an ad online // with a man in his prime // “you can change your life // for a limited time” // My life was in decline.” Commenting on the song, Obis says: “I found myself in a bad way in 2024. Reeling with financial stress and a deep sense of precarity with my career, I was desperate for answers. This led me down a deep hole of online self-help huckster gurus. Charitably, I think that many of these people mean well, and a few genuinely have good advice. But even the best of them are trying to prey on your insecurities and circumstances in order to sell you a course or a health supplement, which I think is both dark and funny. “Instakill” uses these huckster gurus to explore the futility of constant self-optimization. Is it possible to change who you are?”
Guiding Optimizer is an image that came to Obis in a recurring dream, one where he was trapped in the passenger seat and careening toward disaster. He only discovered this potent metaphor once he started keeping a dream journal after an encounter with Jungian psychotherapy. The same exposure led Obis to reconnect with the “mystical” element of music making. This approach resonated with him after the experience of touring on Freak Frequency, when he began to feel boxed in by the persona that he’d constructed for the stage. Obis began writing songs without worrying about whether they sounded like Stuck.
To record Optimizer, Stuck reached out to engineer and producer Andrew Oswald (Marble Eyed, Powerplant, and Smirk). Oswald suggested that they track at Electrical Audio, the legendary Chicago recording studio once run by the late Steve Albini. With Albini’s passing still fresh, the opportunity to record at Electrical took on a personal significance for Obis; recording at Electrical would simultaneously help a local institution fill out their calendar in a moment of tragic instability and affirm Stuck’s place in a lineage of fiercely independent Chicago rock bands. Stuck are proud, in the humble way that any good Midwestern folks are proud, of embodying that archetype. Not only did Obis take over Chicago Mastering Service from Shellac’s Bob Weston when the latter decamped abroad, but Stuck’s choice of album title subconsciously mirrored Big Black’s classic Atomizer.
Optimizer continues their incorporation of synthesizers, and also brings along more backing vocals, bigger choruses, and even blast beats. Oswald made his name recording extreme metal bands like Mortiferum and Caustic Wound. Though it is by no means a metal record, Oswald brought that genre’s level of tactile closed mic detail to Optimizer, resulting in the most high-definition and physically propulsive Stuck record yet. Previous Stuck albums needled you, using fast-twitch guitars to keep you on edge. Optimizer goes straight for the emotional haymaker.
Stuck have no illusions about solving the problem they’ve diagnosed here in shorthand. On the contrary, Optimizer confronts the very idea of trying to solve life head-on, drawing implicit connections between ideology and addiction. Every choice demands a sacrifice. The same instinct that drives us to simplify and streamline our lives can leave behind only our darkest and dumbest impulses. If there’s no escaping the ride we’re on, we might as well crank the dial.
Tour Dates
Fri. Apr. 3 – Detroit, MI @ Outer Limits
Sat. Apr. 4 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison
Sun. Apr. 5 – Montreal, QC @ L’Esco
Tue. Apr. 7 – Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
Wed. Apr. 8 – Brooklyn, NY @ Baby’s All Right
Thu. Apr. 9 – Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts
Sat. Apr. 11 – Philadelphia, PA @ Warehouse on Watts – Cambridge Hall
Sun. Apr. 12 – Washington, DC @ Comet Ping Pong
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