Falling into self-sedation.
From 2018 to 2021, indie rock legends Teenage Fanclub have undergone serval significant changes to the band’s lineup and sound. In 2018 Gerard Love parted ways with the band over differences with touring. After Love’s departure, Euros Childs joined the band, contributing to keyboards and vocals. Following the new addition to band, Teenage Fanclub would release their eleventh album Endless Arcade in 2021. Reception to this album have been mixed, as many have felt the album and the band as whole were showing their age. While Endless Arcade is not bad, it is hard to adjust with the new sound and direction the band would take. Songs like “The Sun Won’t Shine on Me, “In Our Dreams” and “The Future” have this aura of sameness to them. Almost as if the band sounds tired and uninterested. Some contribute this drop in quality to the departure of Love, ending a legendary songwriting run that gave classics like Bandwagonesque, Grand Prix and Songs from Northern Britain. So, if Endless Arcade has the quality of sameness, what is quality of Nothing Lasts Forever?
On first listen, the album seems tired. “Foreign Land” opens up with a long drone that leads into a strum of the dominant chord on an acoustic guitar. This song has makings of fairly standard pop rock number, only something feels off. In the verse as the vocals come in, lead singer Norman Blake and co-lead Raymond McGinley sing as though they are exhausted. The keyboards, guitars and lyrics also suffer from this exhausted atmosphere. In a way, exhausted would describe the general feeling for the first three songs on the album. The next two songs (the aptly titled) “Tired of Being Alone” and “I Left a Light On” has the band settling into the theme of fatigue. The sterile soundscape they presented in the opening of the album can also be found here, as they played with the same dull structure from before while not doing anything break the monotony. Once the first three songs conclude, the album starts to get interesting as then next few songs benefit from the slow pace as the lyrics and music converges.
These four songs are crafted in a way that grabs the listener’s attention. “See the Light” and “It’s Alright” has the band still play in the same tempo as the first three songs, it does not suffer from meandering musicianship. “See the Light” has the band finally lean into their classic song structure. The track opens up with the dual vocals of Blake and McGinley as they sing with a quiet and restrained harmony with a saxophone underbeat. While “It’s Alright” has the band dipping into one of their influences (The Hollies) as the track gives off a nice vocal interplay between the two singers. The next two tracks “Falling into the Sun” and “Self-Sedation” are the best of the album. Giving them the honorable distinction being modern classics in the band’s discography. “Falling into the Sun” takes cues from their 1990s classic era, while “Self-Sedation” is their best written song following Love’s departure. The final tracks vary between the tedium that plagued the beginning of the album (“Middle of My Mind”), to going back to their melodic arrangements (“Back to the Light”) and having a mixture of the former two styles (“I Will Love You”).
To answer the following question posed at the beginning, what is the quality of Nothing Lasts Forever? Does it learn from the shortcomings of Endless Arcade? The answer is yes and no. The album straddles between the dull and the harmonious, Nothing Lasts Forever leaves some listeners longing for more, while others content with what they have. While it started off tired and weak (not helped by the fact the first two singles are also the dullest of the album), it also starts to come into its own mid-way with some solid tracks and melodic songwriting the band is known for. Though this album it may leave some fans disappointed, it has some noteworthy songs that makes it worth listening to.
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