

On their electrifying second album, Archers of Loaf shattered any lingering assumptions that they belonged to the horde of early-‘90s indie-rock slackers. With “Harnessed in Slums,” they deliver an underdog anthem for the ages, powered by a white-knuckled punk intensity and Eric Bachmann’s hoarse-throat rallying cries. But their valorization of the outcast assumes a more tragic tone on “Greatest of All Time,” a barbed-wire ballad whose dejected mantra—”the underground is overcrowded”—serves as an eternal requiem for independent spirits co-opted by corporations.