We live in a post-Skins word; this does not refer to dermal apparel (as pleasant as that sounds) but a world that lives and breathes after that notorious TV programme that made teenagers look like a bunch of horny, selfish wankers, intent on self-destruction, bounding round Bristol in a drug infused feral state. It is only in a post-Skins world that the relevance of a band called Teenager becomes particularly tiresome, predicating the same kind of exigent salaciousness as found on that programme. Teenager, by the way, should not be confused with the French cheap-sounding CSS-istic electro outfit The Teenagers known for garish tunes in the form of ‘**** Nicole’ and ‘Scarlett Johansson’. Nah, the teen of the singular is something else entirely. Thank **** for that.
Welcome then the philandering Australian duo of Nick Littlemore and Pip Brown, who bring lascivious grooves to a seductively orientated debut, titled ‘Thirteen’. Aptly titled ‘Mr Booze’ provides a funky carnal bass line that sits tentatively with Littlemore’s pleading vocals, narrating a nocturnal alcoholic binge. The album draws on fast paced musical formations, a mismatch of sounds, poppy in places, but mainly littered with dirty but enthralling bass lines, sexually charged guitar rifts and sass by the bucket load.
The lyrical content flitters between intense emotional entanglements and sexual indifference; masochistic desperation clinging to the lines "bound and gagged and you’re less than shagged" on so-named single; it’s a dark place, perverse and licentious, but love lacklustre. ‘Alone Again’ is a gently simmering, post-coital track, deliberating over the outcome of an unfinished one night stand. On ‘West’, Littlemore revokes an aged tale of debauchery (the alluring voraciousness of the Wild West) but presumably relocates this to the modern day; the wild W1 of Soho perhaps, a kohl eyed beauty slipping her bra strap down her shoulder to reveal a heaving mound of breast, whilst smouldering from behind her long eyelashes. Or something like that.
‘Pony’ is a promiscuous tale of being club stalked by a girl who looks like Bruce Lee, nabbing New Young Pony Club’s sleazy musical couture. This is where indifference and dislocation emerge, Littlemore removing himself from the emotional minefield as exemplified elsewhere on the album (‘Alone again’ and ‘Bound and Gagged’). It’s not so much schizophrenic as it is confused, dabbling in libidinous sexual practices, reflected in the lyrical repetition (such as ‘and you rub, and you rub, and you rub’ on ‘Pony’).
The album is notably sexually charged but where others fall flat producing meagre attempts to provoke and stimulate, Teenager have managed to both without (complete) wantonness. It’s a shame that these days Hotel is far too busy engorging himself in Moss’s crotch to accompany sex kitten VV on any output The Kills may have to offer; Teenager are the band to pick up The Kills’ baton and capriciously stimulate their nether regions with it, rousing themselves to the brink of ecstasy. Not yet bored by tales of illicit liaisons, rigorous sexual escapades, provocation and subjugation? Us neither. Just clean up with some Kleenex afters, yeah?
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