Grunge with a shoegaze edge
“Lay me in your devil’s garden,” begs “Sunshine,” the opening track of LA duo Teenage Wrist’s newest album. “Devil’s garden” is an apt descriptor for the sound of Still Love – the album is in line with Teenage Wrist’s history of shoegaze-accented grunge, its sound heavier than ever yet still tinged with a seductive sweetness. Darkly melodic riffs pull listeners from track to track, making for a satisfying, collaboration-studded rock album.
While its style and lyricism are solid, the instrumentation truly makes Still Love. While Teenage Wrist consists of only two members – Marshall Gallagher on guitar, bass and vocals, and Anthony Salazar on percussion, drums and vocals – they have the sound of a fully outfitted ’90s grunge band. No instrument feels neglected; the music is as full and classic as it would be with five or six members. The album opens with a whine of grunge guitar on “Sunshine,” a distorted riff grinding its way into the muffled, anxious churn of “Dark Skies” before lurching into “Still Love” with a heaviness bent on crushing. Lead accents brighten up the album’s sound, spiraling through “Digital Self” and adding a goth, organ-affected intrigue to “Humbug” that wails out a melody so frantic it sounds as though it’s barely holding itself together. The rhythm section, however, is the highlight. Even without clinging to a traditional verse-chorus structure, the rhythm guitar plays riffs that manage to be catchy even in their darkness, at times resurrecting a sound reminiscent of Nirvana on tracks like “Dark Sky” and “Digital Self”, equally grim and melodic. The drumming is likewise heavy and punchy, blending with deep, echo-edged basslines. This grounds the music, pounding it into focus where it could otherwise grow murky.
For all their talent with heaviness, Teenage Wrist doesn’t shy away from softer moments. With their roots in shoegaze, the band is careful not to lose themselves in grunge’s dark, metal-flavored melancholia. The songs of Still Love soften at their middles, dissolving into a vague, echoey sweetness. As “Sunshine” mellows into its bridge, the singer speaks of a “taste so sweet, buzzing like honeybees,” a lyric that befits the touches of sweetness studding Still Love. Moments of quiet are filled with echoey, picked guitar, reverberating through “Dark Sky” and “Still Love” like siren song, and the vocals are at times layered and filtered into a gauzy ethereality. This especially stands out when integrating collaborator Softcult, a fellow shoegaze-grunge band. Dreamy female vocals rise above “Still Love”’s crush of sound, placed amidst churning darkness but never overpowered by it. Heavy distortion is used throughout the album, making it all the more striking – not to mention beautiful – when the guitars are cleaner. The second half of the album tends toward this sound: “Diorama,” “Cold Case” and “Sprawled” sound almost like folk songs played underwater, Nirvana Unplugged through a busted speaker. The heaviness of the drums remains even through these softer songs; the effect is one less like a grunge band playing an acoustic set and more like an indie band going through a breakdown, throwing all of their weight into their instruments – an interesting sound for an album that could have otherwise fallen into the groove of generic modern grunge.
While Teenage Wrist’s experimentation is often to great effect, there are some near-misses towards the end of the album, as though the band began to lose the thread of its sound as Still Love wore itself to a close. The oboe accents on “Sprawled” don’t have the softness of shoegaze or the gritty edge of grunge. Likewise, the echoey, strummed sound is pushed too far on the overlong closer “Paloma a.k.a. Ketamine,” a strange, discordant number praising the merits of ketamine, made weak and thin by its unfortunate use of a drum machine instead of Salazar’s stellar drumming. While Still Love was an enjoyable listen, it didn’t stretch itself out any longer than it had to.
Bleak and melodic, distorted and soft, Teenage Wrist’s music is as sweet as it is bitter. Full of pounding drums and shoegaze-accented bridges, soft and dark as a bruised apple, Still Love is a faithful continuation of a ’90s grunge sound, while also integrating a modern indie touch more distinctive to the band – this makes for a solid listen and one that manages to never quite sound generic.
Leave a Comment