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Add to playlist: the ramshackle, soulful twang of Twisted Teens and the week’s best new tracks
- Virtuosic when it counts, ramshackle when necessary, Twisted Teens feel like they could slot nicely on to a bill with Parquet Courts and the late, great Royal Headache – crunchy, literary rock bands who seemed to shyly conceal their music’s anthemic nature.
- Twisted Teens broke through earlier this year with their second album Blame the Clown, a set of 12 country-punk tracks that’s hooky and effusive enough to give any major-label pop record released this year a run for its money.
- A couple of weeks ago, they released its followup, the rangier and slightly more introspective Florida Water Blues, and before the year’s out they’ll have dropped Holy Cross Tigers, a release schedule befitting a band on a hot streak.
- The pair’s origin story is foggy – the most one can glean from interviews is “they were neighbours, then Santos travelled cross-country to buy a steel guitar” – which feels appropriate for this kind of grimy, mythic music, which is raw and self-consciously handmade.
The New Orleans country-punk duo are on a hot streak, about to release their third album in a year, and the crunchy, literate hooks keep coming From New Orleans Recommended if you like Parquet Courts, Sheer Mag, Royal Headache Up next Holy Cross Tigers out later this year Not one but two of the year’s best albums so far are authored by a ragtag, deeply charismatic band from Louisiana named Twisted Teens, who bear Pynchonian names – Caspian Hollywell and RJ “Razor Ramone” Santos – a console steel guitar and, in Hollywell’s case, one of rock’s greatest, most soulful voices in many years. Virtuosic when it counts, ramshackle when necessary, Twisted Teens feel like they could slot nicely on to a bill with Parquet Courts and the late, great Royal Headache – crunchy, literary rock bands who seemed to shyly conceal their music’s anthemic nature. Twisted Teens broke through earlier this year with their second album Blame the Clown, a set of 12 country-punk tracks that’s hooky and effusive enough to give any major-label pop record released this year a run for its money.
A couple of weeks ago, they released its followup, the rangier and slightly more introspective Florida Water Blues, and before the year’s out they’ll have dropped Holy Cross Tigers, a release schedule befitting a band on a hot streak. The pair’s origin story is foggy – the most one can glean from interviews is “they were neighbours, then Santos travelled cross-country to buy a steel guitar” – which feels appropriate for this kind of grimy, mythic music, which is raw and self-consciously handmade. Part of that feeling can be put down to Hollywell’s voice, a gritty and pockmarked thing which he uses to great effect, interspersing deadpan meditations on life and love with a rich, almighty howl that’s ostentatious but unpretentious.
Shaad D’Souza View image in fullscreen Club-ready … John Glacier. Bond Girl The peerless UK MC’s most club-ready cut to date: a hip-house track with a Detroit-ish bassline, topped with Glacier airily pronouncing her fashion bona fides. Portland Works Silverstein was raised in New Jersey, based in the Pacific Northwest and, here, inspired by a Sheffield factory – yet this radiant cosmic Americana smear of pedal steel, acoustic and honeyed synths exudes pure wild west.
Source: Guardian Music