Teenage Moods: Grow Review
The charming, ragged sound Teenage Moods create is summed up nicely early in the mid-album track “You Make Stars.” The guitars are straight from the mid 90’s alt rock playbook, wrapped in a gentle blanket of fuzz with a half-baked guitar hook meshing with warm chords and self efficacious lyrics like “I have no place in this world” that therapeutically morph through the song into a story about finding a person to “run away with” who makes “starts should out of my eyes.” It is a anguished love song packaged in melodic grunge, filtered though an earnest, lo-fi lens that the group have developed over their previous releases (including some CDR’s and their excellent 2011 LP Mood Ring). For an album that has no songs lasting over 3:30, it feels like a substantial piece of work. From the tightly wound “You” to the slightly twangy and sweet title track, the band aren’t afraid to tweak their sound throughout the album and it is a mixture of influences that keep the listener on their toes. Singer/songwriter Gordon Byrd has an ear for timeless melodies and heart-on-sleeve lyrics that never come across plodding or unnecessarily dramatic. When he sings, in an anguished moan, “teardrops will fall” over and over on the track of the same name, it doesn’t feel mopey or whiny, but like a heavyhearted confession in a way only the best songwriters can pull off. Like kindred spirits Sleeping in the Aviary, the band write solid, deadly serious tracks that they sometimes seem to purposely get lost behind a veil of goofiness and quirks in their sound. The songs can seem sweet and casual, but underneath the grunge era power chords and the off kilter, lo-fi production style there is a record that might be one of the best local collections of pure rock and roll songs released so far this year. Watch a video below for the strutting, wiry “Rock Man” and stream the whole record from the groups bancamp page. See them tonight (Sat, 3/9) at the Hexagon with Ex-Nuns, The Gateway District and NPC’s for what should be a great show. Grab the great LP from either the group at the show tonight or via their bandcamp page below.
Writer / co-founder
