Lurching Toward a Counterculture
Come see Fugue State play our taproom on Friday, April 11. Before then, you can check out Mundane Man, an American Pale Ale inspired by their new album on tap and in 4-packs.
Having come of age at the tail-end of the twentieth century, I’ve spent most of my adult life accepting music critics’ narrative that rock and roll was dead. Right at the start of the new millennium, there was a hopeful death rattle, or so it seemed to us then, with a resurgence in garage rock and the indie music scene reaching the height of its power before becoming coopted into what was left of the mainstream music industry in a post-Napster world.
Looking back, more than two decades after Radiohead’s Kid A ushered in all sorts of elegies and think pieces about the death of guitar-driven rock, that generational and musical shift wasn’t really the cause of rock and roll’s apparent death so much as it was a symptom of a larger issue.
For decades, rock and roll was not simply a popular art form, but it was one of the most vital unifying elements of the counterculture, and when all of us eventually became swallowed up by the corporate entities that control most of the internet, it became pretty challenging to maintain a true counter culture. And so, there remained guitar-driven rock, but it was disseminated on streaming platforms and used in iPod commercials, and the specter of “selling out” which had been a nineties boogeyman for so many popular artists was replaced by a tacitly opting in.
Born out of the DIY and punk scene here in Western Massachusetts, the band Fugue State reminds me of a time when rock and roll still had social utility and indie wasn’t just a searchable genre on Spotify. On their full-length album In the Lurch, they play with a sense of urgency—not of any overt political message, but of the need to express angst, frustration, and world weariness in the way that rock and roll is best equipped to do.
Kicking off the album, “Moot Point,” has the energy and tone of The Stooges, but instead of simply hanging out in proto-punk terrain, Fugue State is able to confidently fuse together elements of blues-inspired garage bands and the crisp guitar playing of indie sleaze. On subsequent tracks, they continue to effectively synthesize elements ranging from doom metal to early Flaming Lips-esque psychedelic noise rock. The result is something that feels familiar, refreshing, and necessary in this current political moment.
After listening to In the Lurch and trying to understand why it felt so relevant, I realized that all the way through this album, I was engaging with a band that was sure of itself and what they’re trying to express. Fugue State doesn’t shy away from their musical influences, but they aren’t limited by them, either.
To celebrate this album, we wanted to make a beer inspired by their musical project. We settled on an American Pale Ale, which is hopped to give it the upfront bitterness that evokes the late-90s/early 2000s pale ales that helped usher in the first wave of the craft beer revolution. We also dry hopped this beer to give it a little haze (playing off the idea of what a fugue state actually is), and we think the result is akin to what In the Lurch sets out to do: build a bridge from the artists and art forms that inspired us to this disorienting present moment.
There aren’t any answers or clarion calls in either the album or the beer, but what both hope to achieve, I think, is to (re)connect us with the last vestiges of twentieth century counterculture and, hopefully, inspire us to keep expressing ourselves in ways that run contra to a mainstream that feels increasingly distant from the things we value ourselves.
In the Lurch ultimately defies pigeonholing, and that might be the most beautiful aspect of the album. After being divided by generational labels, increasingly niche subgenres, identity politics, and the like, this is a piece of art that reminds us how freeing and exciting it can be to exist outside of such narrow boundaries.
Check it out for yourself and pre-order the album here