by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Salem, MA based quintet SUPERTEEN work magic in layering. When listening to their music, there's always something permeating just underneath the focus. It calls your attention then dissipates into something else. Melodic and harmonic ideas collide without hesitation, and in the wrong hands music like this would be a disastrous mess, but in the case of SUPERTEEN, it's borderline brilliance.
Last year saw the release of the band's criminally overlooked sophomore album Stay Creepy, a record packed with disorienting punk soul, drugged out indie pop ballads, and a haunting yet sardonic disposition. Wasting no time, SUPERTEEN return with a new full length, Isn't A Person, due out this coming Friday, January 15th via Sad Cactus Records. Picking up where Stay Creepy left off, it appears that SUPERTEEN just keep getting better. Twisted post-punk and dark as hell psych rock are par for the course, strung out in every direction as the guitars work together to create a thick layered madness. At the core of their charm lies duel vocalists Sam Robinson and Meryl Schultz, often singing simultaneously, harmonizing at times and delightfully working against each at others. Beautiful, discordant, well structured yet deceptively loose, their music pushes as it pulls, transfixed in it's sinister witchy grooves. Just as the chaos seems ready to implode, SUPERTEEN are careful to pull back the intensity, while maintaining the never ending tension. Unnerving and unflinching, the band have created a unique record that has us excited for the future of psych punk... at least when SUPERTEEN is involved.
We're thrilled to present the premiere of the album's first single, "Oh Baby," a sprawling blast of warped psych and uneasy pop. After a brief flutter of chirping birds, SUPERTEEN lock in with a crawling alarm of a riff that immediately sets the ominous tone before Schultz sings with a dreamy confidence, "my close friend is terrified of death, and I am terrified of living a life long enough". Steeped in soul and punk magnetism, Schultz's voice is as detached as it is impassioned, creating an undeniably hypnotic infectiousness. The track swells and the stakes rise as the drums skitter around with jazzy art-rock abandonment. As the tension builds, Robinson joins in on vocals, adding a second melody to the ensuing all-too-cool storm that is "Oh Baby". Attention to detail goes a long way on this one, and the reward is as gratifying as anything we've heard in recent memory. Consider this one essential listening. Watch out for SUPERTEEN, one of the underground's best kept secrets.
SUPERTEEN's "Isn't A Person" is due out January 15th via Sad Cactus Records. Pre-order HERE.