As the name suggests, Adult Teen deals in the ways that many 20- and 30-somethings are often not as “grown up” as is expected of them, particularly in regards to love and relationships. But as you might imagine from a guitar and drum machine-wielding whirlwind, these are not soft and tender songs pining for that special someone. Label Father/Daughter Records (who are releasing the vinyl issue of the album) describe the Lisa Prank sound as “dominated by bruised romanticism, introspective longing, and a palpable sense of desire, building a sound heavily influenced by 90s pop punk and the decade’s lighthearted culture”. A VHS-grained nostalgia for the Nineties is pretty prominent, from the stylistic nods to Blink 182 et al. to the teen movie blend of sincere and heartfelt worries and simple good fun. There’s even a track named ‘I Want to Believe’ for chrissakes.

The album wastes no time in getting right to the pop punk goodness, opener ‘Starting Again’ a sub-three minute blast which sees Edwards struggling to forget a former beau, even if they were something of a jerk.

“you say you’re not still drinking
you just started again
I swear I don’t still miss you
I just started again”

‘Luv is Dumb’ rushes through its 1:30 run-time at breakneck speed, the tale of having all your thoughts reduced to a crush, while ‘Jumper’ has some electronic beats (from Edward’s trusty Roland MC-505 drum machine) behind restrained guitars, which eventually blossom to become warm and rich. Lyrically the song is a good illustration of the themes of the whole album, as Edwards sings “don’t wanna be in love cause it’s never enough / and I don’t wanna fall for you cause we’ll only make each other blue”. The rest of the songs exist in this same plane of self-examining melodrama, a life that’s begun to imitate all those 90s teen movies – all break-ups and make-ups and epiphanies of the ‘what-was-I-thinking?’ variety. ‘Baby Let Me Write Yr Lines’ is a hectic bounce-along track about growing to realise that you partner isn’t quite as special as you’d first thought, while ‘Drive Anywhere’ (which featured on Jon’s Toon Tunes effort for The Grey Estates) is about that confusion and loss of direction after a relationship breaks down.

“lights flashing
signs passing
I could drive anywhere
but there’s nowhere that
I really wanna go”

Closer ‘I Want to Believe’ sounds warm and happy and hopeful, as Edwards sings lines that hold a belief that this time things will be different, that the complications of past relationships won’t appear in the next one. It’s not clear if this hope should be applauded or doubted – is having faith in things working out a virtue or simple naivete? Edwards is well aware of this bind herself, as she sings:

“and maybe I’m too optimistic
I never learn much from the past”

On Adult Teen, Lisa Prank deal with all the pitfalls of being a young person in the only way they know how. It’s an album that puts equal faith in the energy of pop punk and the connective power of sharing real feelings, Edwards swerving mumbling melancholy for something bright and brief and blazingly her own.

Adult Teen is out on cassette tape and vinyl from Father Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. All orders of the record come with limited edition sticker sheet (below!), designed by Faye Orlove, who also created the album artwork.

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Vagabon is the recording project of Lætitia Tamko who, along with Eva Lawitts (bass) and Elise Okusami (drums), makes a robust blend of indie rock and bedroom pop. Persian Garden, which came out last November, is a mini-album centred on the departure (and continued absence) of a friend or loved one which pushes and pulls in all directions, as if straining against some emotional shackles (self-imposed or otherwise). Opener ‘Cold Apartment Floors’ is a good example. The lyrics and instrumentation conjure a disconsolate air for the most part, but brimming beneath is a sense of something else, a certain charge in the guitar and Tamko’s vocals which add another dimension, hinting at a greater depth to the whole situation:

“I know its my fault, I gave up on everything
and I see you happy, it warms my heart.

And we said its not the end but she wore that white dress
and I changed, we are not the same but i thought you’d wait

So we sit on my cold apartment floor where we thought we’d stay in love”

From here the album accelerates with ‘Shadows’, an urgent track with ramshackle banjo and steel guitar supporting lyrics centred on wandering and movement (Vagabon is a meaningful moniker). The song has the breathless feel of constant action, Tamko stealing gasps between lines as she lets her words stream out in a desperate rush. ‘Vermont II’ deals with the longing that comes with a change of heart (“Freddy come back I know you love where you are /
but I think I changed my mind”) while ‘Heroine’ traces addiction through small towns and cold winters, detailing the disappointment of relapsing into old habits (“winter will never be the same now that you’re back to your old ways”), the guitars rising into squally chaos and forcing Tamko to wail behind the noise. ‘Vermont’ squirms in a different direction: backwards. Here the secondary character (Freddy?) is packing for Vermont, allowing us to see the narrator pre-mind change, wounded by deceit but trying to heal, if only to prove a point. ‘Sharks’ picks up from this point, capturing the slump in self-worth that succeeds lies and rows.

“Run and tell everybody that Laetitia is
a small fish

I’m just a small fish.

And you’re a shark that hates everything.
You’re a shark that eats every fish”

Vagabon make the special kind of sad and confused music that has the opposite effect on the listener. The sort of music that makes you feel part of something, a big sad and confused gang spread out all over the world, connected by shared experience and a sneaky feeling that life is worth living.

You can buy Persian Garden now from the Vagabon Bandcamp page. It was out on cassette via Miscreant Records but we’re waaaay too late for that. Check Ebay, maybe?

P.S. Lætitia plays guitar in Real Life Buildings, who we like very much.

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Fresh from putting out a split release with Jawbreaker Reunion earlier this year they are back with their debut full length, Ugly Cherries. A fair number of tracks have been unveiled in the previous weeks. ‘Dairy Queen‘ details plans for happiness/freedom/world domination to be set in motion once the narrator has finished their shower, while the title track confronts queerness head on with a clear-eyed defiance. The pick of the bunch is ‘West Texas’, where Hopkins and Bruce alternate verses to describe a variety of attempted escapes, all of which circle back to where they started – horribly, irrevocably in love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtquRuiGABc&feature=youtu.be

The latest track to be unveiled is ‘1994’, a throw back to the feel-good power-anthems of the early nineties. Once again however, the band mix this sense of fun with serious and personal lyrics, allowing for a song at once danceable and cryable:

“Haven’t seen your face since 1994
It feels like nothing
These days it pays to be so strange
And I’m like nothing”

Ugly Cherries is to be released on the 18th September. You can pre-order it now via Father/Daughter Records and Miscreant Records. The band are also heading out on tour for those of you in the US. See the full dates below (* indicates with Mitski, # are with Mitski and Palehound):

09/18 @ Silent Barn – Brooklyn, NY (Record release w/ Charly Bliss, Fern Mayo, Kississippi)
10/14 @ Aurora – Providence, RI (w/ S featuring Jenn Ghetto of Carissa’s Weird)
10/31 @ Shea Stadium – Brooklyn, NY (w/ Joanna Gruesome, Aye Nako, King of Cats)
11/10 @ PhilaMOCA – Philadelphia, PA *
11/11 @ DC9 – Washington, DC *
11/12 @ Southern Cafe – Charlottesville, VA #
11/13 @ Pinhook – Durham, NC #
11/14 @ Caledonia Lounge – Athens, GA #
11/16 @ The High Watt – Nashville, TN #
11/17 @ Bishop Bar – Bloomington, IN #
11/18 @ The Frequency – Madison, WI #
11/19 @ 7th Street Entry – Minneapolis, MN #
11/20 @ Beat Kitchen – Chicago, IL #
11/21 @ Rumba Cafe – Columbus, OH #
11/23 @ Smiling Buddha – Toronto, ON #
11/24 @ Casa Del Popolo – Montreal, QC #
11/25 @ BSP Lounge – Kingston, NY #

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There are two things to know about O-FACE: 1) their sound is complex and intricate, whirring like a well-oiled machine of cogs and gears which achieves so much more than its composite parts suggest, and 2) they are committed to taking seriously the fact that they don’t take themselves too seriously. Take opening track ‘740 Turbo’ as an example, a song about true love which centres upon the gloriously American image of a luxury station wagon:

“baby you can drive my car;
it’s a luxury station wagon.
you can go wherever you want;
it’s a luxury station wagon”

The track thunders into existence and doesn’t let up until the closing bars, mixing humorous lyrics with sincere delivery and sound to produce something which wins you over instantly. ‘Yolanda’ is begins with mathy guitar before evolving into a bouncy pop song, half-sentimental, half-carefree and wholly fun to listen to. Think the rollercoaster power pop of Fang Island blended with 90s emo rock. ‘O-FACE is Breaking Up’ hits the brakes but ramps up the volume for a pretty epic slow-burner which contains the line “Now I’m dressed up like Davy Crockett trying to grin down a bear”, which is good enough reason to buy the release in itself. Closer ‘Torres’ continues the grand scale, a post-hardcore instrumental which leaves the band’s immaculate arrangements fresh in the mind of the listener long after the final chord.

Mint is out now through Father/Daughter and Miscreant Records.

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Adult Mom (who we featured on our Favourite Free Music list) is the bedroom pop project of Steph Knipe, and here she is supported by a full band. This band gives Sometimes Bad Happens a well-developed sound that is not as lo-fi as you might expect from the bedroom pop tag.

Lyrically, the release is a refreshingly honest (you could say naive, but aren’t we all?) take on young relationships and their termination. That sort of I-hate-you-but-can’t-stop-thinking-about-you-so-now-I’m-starting-to-hate-myself feeling. ‘I Make Boys Cry’ is interesting in that it deals with the whole romance/love thing from a different angle, ditching the angsty male ‘I love her/I miss her/I need her’ POV for a more realistic female perspective. Forget in-depth think pieces or convoluted psycho-/sociological essays, you won’t find a better description of the crux of feminism than the line: “I make boys cry because they don’t understand that i am a person.” Women have feelings too, huh? Who would have thought it? To quote the song in full:

“i make boys cry in parking lots outside of restaurants
but boys make me cry too when they tell me
‘i love you! i love you! i love you!’

how many times will i be the one to enlighten and never get anything?

i make boys cry because they don’t understand that i am a person
yeah i get sad too but i don’t take it out on you

it’s shit that your love for me scared you so much
but “i love you! i love you! i love you!” is not enough.”

But despite the songs being full of sadness and confusion and hurt, they serve to point things out beyond the obvious ‘I’m sad, this sucks.’ Out of the bad times catalogued here comes something affirming, an acknowledgement that x is bad, and y is bad too, but I’m still alive and functioning and now I know x and y is bad so maybe I can deal with it better. Knipe describes this better than I can:

‘”Sometimes bad happens” is a direct quote from a toddler after dropping a truck full of sand on the floor and it resonated with me because it’s simple. Sometimes bad does happen, it’s a given, and sometimes we have to just move on and accept it. Accept bad shit, accept pain, accept being heartbroken, and one day you will be able to grow taller. Be angry and wild and sad and wacky because sometimes it’s all we can do to survive. Appreciate sadness and its temporary quality. That’s all, thank you to everyone in life.’

Sometimes Bad Happens will be officially released on the 22nd August, and you can buy it on Bandcamp, or on tape via Miscreant Records. The good folks over at The Le Sigh are streaming the EP on Soundcloud.

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