Chapel Hill’s indie rock stalwarts Superchunk have felt more like an institution than a working band for the last, oh, decade or so. The Merge label started by Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance keeps busy releasing records by bigger and bigger names -- Spoon, M Ward, Conor Oberst -- as well as scooping up reuniting icons Dinosaur Jr. and American Music Club. Drummer Jon Wurster seems to be a semi-permanent fixture in the Mountain Goats these days. Of course McCaughan has been progressively more prolific with his once side-project and now main focus, Portastatic.

It felt, increasingly, as if the seeds were sown for Superchunk the band to be put to rest. Then a funny thing happened: Superchunk began playing benefit one off shows such as 2007′s Metro show and a few new songs started popping up in their sets. And, lo and behold, an EP of new (or at least newish) songs, Leaves In The Gutter, was released, and then followed soon after by the Crossed Wires 7″ single. With these new releases, a foundation was perhaps being built for a full fledged Superchunk re-awakening.

Perhaps the signs weren’t as hard to see as first thought. The slow decline of the “Superchunk started with 1999′s overstuffed Jim O’Rourke-produced Come Pick Me Up and followed by 2001′s mildly entertaining Here’s To Shutting Up. All the while McCaughan was releasing more divergent Portastatic albums ranging from the Spanish language Del Mel, De Melao to the soundtrack to the film Looking for Leonard. But more recently the Portastatic releases -- 2003′s Summer of the Shark and 2005′s Bright Ideas featuring Jim Wilbur on bass -- have sounded more like half-baked Superchunk projects. In fact, Bright Ideas suffered from the lack of Ballance and Wurster. The Portastatic show at the Empty Bottle in support of Bright Ideas leaned heavily on McCaughan’s rocking side, and the Superchunk show at the Metro clearly pointed to re-energized McCaughan fronting an equally re-energized “Chunk. The re-convergence was almost complete.

So then comes the new EP and 7″ single. Anytime a band has been away for so long it’s easy to wonder where they’ll pick up. Thankfully it seems McCaughan has purged himself of his boundary, stretching ways and packed Leaves In The Gutter and Crossed Wires 7″ with good old up-tempo tunes reminiscent of, say, Here’s Where The Strings Come In era Superchunk. All things considered, that’s a fine place to be. “Learned to Surf” kicks off the Leaves In The Gutter in thunderous Superchunk glory complete with those beautiful descending dueling guitar lines and driving riffs. McCaughan might not be back to his No Pocky For Kitty shouting, but he has left the soft “singing” behind and regained his Hyper Enough, I don’t know what you’d call it, shelling, maybe?

“Misfits and Mistakes,” also found on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force soundtrack (with a version sung by Meatwad no less) would fit snuggly into On The Mouth, clean and ferocious. There are hints of keyboards, but nothing like the jumble of Come Pick Me Up, instead the keyboards lay low to provide a bit of pop quirk. “Screw It Up” is pure pop bliss all cute and choppy a la “Foolish’s Driveway To Driveway” -- the way indie pop used to be. “Knock Knock Knock” re-ups the tempo and epic chorus ante to nirvana. Who doesn’t want to sing along to the lyrics “here we go…here we go”? That there sums up the whole vibe of Leaves In The Gutter. It’s straight forward, riff heavy, anthemic. Oh, there’s an acoustic version of “Learned To Surf” -- they love their acoustic versions -- to tie things up.

McCaughan says that these songs have been kicking around for awhile, and if there were to be a new album, he felt it was necessary to get them recorded and out of the way. If true, then the Crossed Wires 7″ single might be a better indicator if Superchunk are serious about regaining their long lost legacy. Fortunately the answer is an emphatic yes. Crossed Wires is as fast and lean as classic ‘Chunk, and even nods to Built To Spill with its trippy rubbery guitar breakdown. The B-side, the so-called fast version of “Blinders,” finds McCaughan adopting an almost English accent, so much so it sounds lik a cover. But it’s all Superchunk -- short and fast with a warbled keyboard replacing the usually guitar interplay between McCaughan and Wilbur. Hearing McCaughan full of energy finally backed by Ballance’s rumbling bass, Wurster’s frenetic drumming, and Wilbur’s counter lines is once again a reminder to the power of the Superchunk and where the real joy emerges.

Superchunk were never supposed to be a band that out-clevered you. They were, at their best moments, able to make you play the most animated air drums and sing along at the top of your lungs when at home. And almost involuntarily and against your self-conscience better judgement, jump up and down in lock-step with the band when witnessing their live show. The Leaves In the Gutter EP and Crossed Wires 7″ single provide all of that while not merely just rehashing the past. So, despite all the detours, it seems in 2009 Superchunk are not only a working band once again, but one pointed decidedly in the right direction.