To many, the nineties seem like just yesterday. The music of the last decade of the millenia was rife with crunchy distortion where grunge dominated the alternative scene. Teenage Wrist’s third album, Still Love (Epitaph Records), pulls in several styles like grunge, shoegaze, pop, and synth, and musical influences such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Deftones, and even Pink Floyd.
The LA duo took time to focus on themselves and their craft to offer up a selection of tracks unique to them and their trials and tribulations. While there is no overall theme or story, Still Love weaves together self love anthems and pensive emotional catharsis.
Straight out of the gate, ‘Sunshine’ gallops ahead with a catchy riff that vocalist / guitarist / bassist Marshall Gallagher claims to be “the coolest riff he’s ever written”. ‘Sunshine’ is a positive message bottled in an equally upbeat track, and is arguably the most distinctive track on the album due to said guitar riff. The distorted guitar gives the listener something to sink their teeth into.
Keep chewing, because the album casually ebbs and flows between tempos, but the satisfactory crunch of the guitars never wavers. Across the twelve tracks, it is chock full of talented features – from 311’s vocalist / turntablist Doug “SA” Martinez, Softcult, and Sister Void, to Fear Before The March Of Flames and Heavenward.
Where ‘Sunshine’ galloped, ‘Something Good’ saunters with a melancholic pace and desire to be understood and to be better, to come back with something good. ‘Sprawled’ sees the Pink Floyd nod with the added surprise of a saxophone in the band’s successful attempt to be bold. Across the album, there are fun surprises and sprinklings of different styles while remaining steady and resilient with their grungy sound.
The resiliency is matched not only within the music, but between Gallagher and vocalist / drummer Anthony Salazar. For ten years, the duo has played music together and their personal expression and compatibility is remarkable. “I feel like a lot of guys play together and they get annoyed with that but I never feel that way,” Salazar says. “There’s always the keen sense of wanting to explore what’s out there musically and I think that’s what helps us a lot with creating and staying connected.”
Even though the album is deemed theme-less, it could be challenged that the theme is self-love and self-acceptance, the power of unbridled creativity and passion, and the courage it takes to lay all the cards on the table.
Buy the album here:
https://teenagewrist.bandcamp.com/album/still-love
7 / 10
JESSIE FRARY