Stuck : Optimizer
The vibes, based on Stuck‘s observations, are bad. You don’t need a punk band to tell you that—we all know how much of a drag the day-to-day is right now. Wages are stagnant so billionaires can squeeze us for a little bit more, but at least we can rack up gambling debt on our phones. The government is trying to win meme wars while waging actual wars. And AI is horning in one of the last few things worth being hopeful for—art—but still won’t put away the dishes or the laundry. It’s not great.
The weight of the world is the albatross around the Chicago trio’s collective neck on Optimizer, each song a document of sorts of the emotional and literal energy it takes to function right now in one way or another. But where prior Stuck albums packaged that frustration with a modicum of irony (see: Content That Makes You Feel Good), here singer Greg Obis offers his observations and social critique more directly. It’s surprising just how effective that ends up being on a song like “Totally Vexed,” wherein Obis’ introspection yields moments of clarity like, “It’s hard to know what you want, and to know that it’s worse/this newfound knowledge of self, you carry around like a curse.” As the song rises up and the anthemic post-hardcore hooks come flooding in with a cry of “You don’t know what you want,” so does the catharsis.
Stuck pair their polemic immediacy with an appropriately direct melodic approach, even their knottiest arrangements harboring infectious melodies. Obis shrugs off the humiliation of a declined credit card through bouncy popcorn synths on “Instakill,” while the band’s performance lives up to what “Less Is More” promises, all 46 seconds of its all-pistons-firing herky-jerky new wave. A litany of self-loathing (“Don’t you ever get sick of yourself… don’t you wish you were someone else?“) earns a guitar solo on the hard-driving climax of power pop standout “Sicko.” And masculinity itself begins to sound a lot like the prime suspect of the supposed loneliness epidemic (“a roomful of men, ignoring each other“) amid the infectious jangle of “Deadlift.”
As it was with past records’ highlights such as “Anniversary” from 2020’s Change Is Bad, Stuck are often at their best when they slow down a little and give their songwriting a little more room to breathe. The brooding post-punk groove of “It Isn’t” is just such a moment, showcasing the nimble rhythmic work of bassist David Algrim and drummer Tim Green and offering a necessary respite from the frantic rippers of the album’s front half. It’s a moment of grace in the eye of the shitstorm. But a furious post-hardcore anthem like “Punchline,” with hypnotic arpeggios scraping up against an uptempo guitar scratch, offers something just as valuable. There will always be another demotivational speech in the mirror, another declined card, another realization you wish you didn’t have, but there’s nothing better for replenishing the soul than receiving validation through rippers like these.
Label: Exploding In Sound
Year: 2026
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