A Look at Merge's Top Bands

Alongside Mac McCaughan (vocals/guitar) and Laura Ballance (bass), Jim Wilbur (guitar) and John Wurster (drums) compose the pop-punk quartet Superchunk, one of the most important and longest-running indie rock bands of the past 20 years. In fact, along with Merge, the band itself is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Their social critique against a lazy Kinko's worker, "Slack Motherfucker," was their big break and brought the band's music to mass audiences. Since then, they've continued to fabulously mine music in the grunge, pop-punk vein. Their latest release, Here's to Shutting Up, pairs them up with Wilco producer Brian Paulson and showcases their typical sound, albeit with a decidedly more mature and refined feel. A light will never go out in independent music as long as Superchunk is still crafting its power-pop-laden gems.

Austin pop-rockers Spoon arrange infectious melodies around the barest of song structures. Founded in 1992, the group's musical feel has been almost constantly evolving with a sound uniquely its own yet still featuring marked influences like the punk sensibility of the Pixies, the atmospheric imagery of Calexico and the grunged-out hooks of Nirvana. Perhaps best of all, the band's latest album Kill The Moonlight exemplifies the musical hodgepodge that is Spoon, as effervescent swigs of punk, rock and pop infuse each song with a simplistic, yet incredibly catchy personality.

A reinterpretation of the drone-pop of the Velvet Underground with an emphasis on the pop over the drone, London-based The Clientele creates some of the most hazy, dusky and dreamy music today. With reverbed vocals and understated instrumentals, their 2003 debut, The Violet Hour, sounds like a more sedated version of The Sleepy Jackson, as they fashion a number of sing-along, stoner-pop ditties. The violet, witching hour is on as this band continues to explore through their music the depths of the haze and the fog.

Retro pop is back with The Rosebuds' debut, The Rosebuds Make Out, which last year soared to the "Top Albums of 2003" lists. With a sound reminiscent of a cheery Morrissey, the band--featuring married couple Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp plus Jonathan Bass on drums--sings about girls who are "buck wild with [their] clothes off every night" and about visiting their downtown friends.

Although the band's sound never becomes too complex, each song on this LP rollicks to some of the best rhythms in modern music. It's unadulterated rock and pop that glistens with every "whoa," "yeah," and "itchy, itchin' timebombs." The band is currently on a nationwide tour and spreading its infectious noise around the U.S.