Album Review: Beach Slang, A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings

Scribed by: Miles Purdy

Album: ‘A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings’

Artist: Beach Slang

Record Label: Polyvinyl Record co.

Release Date: September 23, 2016

Rating:

Image courtesy of beachslang.bandcamp.com

Last year, Beach Slang rose to out of the void on their first full-length album The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us on Polyvinyl, and have already come back with their new release A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings. Unsurprisingly, the album feels just like it sounds; a blast of ballads riding on raw energy and the trials of the young. The Philadelphia based rockers have brought about another well put together collection here. This collection is even more cohesive than their first release, maintaining a more constant tone and slightly tightened production.

The music itself is a thirty-minute distillment of mid to late 80’s rock and 2010’s garage rock. It’s a loud, passionate and fuzzy melody that soars and flows to frontman James Alex’s raspy and earnest vocals. Tracks like “Punks in a Disco Bar” and “Future Mixtape for the Art Kids” especially stand out, with great lyrics and excellent production. Even then, it does end on a less explosive note on the methodical strumming of “Warpaint”, which it’s stand up for yourself message left me uninterested and bored after some of the fantastic lyrics on the album’s earlier tracks. And to be frank, although the lyrics are enjoyable, they tend to miss some of the oomph that their debut carried.

This album, much like Japandroids’ two albums, Celebration Rock and Post-Nothing, are the albums that are indebted and practically dedicated to the young folks; these songs are the potential soundtrack for the time you went out all night with a couple of friends and ended up talking about what life is actually like, and what it might be. That being said, as great as these songs are, they neither innovate or deviate at all from Beach Slang’s previous releases from last year, which shouldn’t be surprising. In truth, this is not a bad thing in the least; the band wears their influences from Paul Westerberg of The Replacements fame, and their evolution of that sound instills a shot of nostalgia into songs for a current generation.