March 28, 2024

Teen Creeps – ‘FOREVER’ – grungy throwback pleases and relaxes

PIAS    22nd Jan, 2021

I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to listen to Belgian music after Brexit but, at the risk of incurring import duty on my ears, here we go. Teen Creeps aren’t creeps and you wouldn’t know they weren’t a grungy band from the States, flown in by time machine from the Nineties.

Nicely fuzzed up and styling a laid back set of tempos, an easy-going feel pervades most of the set, excepting the odd track, like the pleasantly speedy ‘Fall Out’ (the single) or the thrashy Hideaway. Overall there’s a feel of The Lemonheads play Dinosaur Jr, crunchy, over-driven chords atop drum beats just a microsecond behind the beat, enough to detune any pre-millennial anxiety and leave us fuzzily happy. I’m hearing a little Ash in there too, on tracks like ‘Tourist’, thanks to the strong tunes and use of minor chords.

Lyric sentiments are similarly gently detached from the immediate and acting as an observer on the internal turmoil. Quite how a Belgian band manages to wear the musical clothes of Seattle so well and negotiate the lyrical nuances of the slacker generation, I don’t know but it is hard not to warm to this album.

Baby, baby, baby (to quote Chris Farlowe), they’re out of time – but nicely so and they seem to be enjoying the experience, which means I do too.

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