THE BEL AIR LIP BOMBS – AGAIN; TEEN JESUS AND THE JEAN TEASERS – GLORY: REVIEW
- Bernard Zuel
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
THE BELAIR LIP BOMBS
Again (Third Man Records)
TEEN JESUS AND THE JEAN TEASERS
Glory (Community Music)
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SOME PRELIMINARY, not exactly about the music but not not about the music observations.
Every so often – let’s be honest, any day since about 1957 – you’ll hear some prematurely old fart muttering under his breath about how all the good band names have been done and look at the stupidities we have now. And this was mostly before King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard appeared. But here are two bordering on absurd, maybe even stupid, but yet damn fine names for bands that fill the mouth, tease the memory and say everything/nothing.
Speaking of names, while the band names are bordering on extravagant, no way are you going to find the records with title in the region of a My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair But Now They’re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows, one of the book-length Fiona Apple titles or even Tales From Topographic Oceans here. In keeping with their Australian background – Teen Jesus from Canberra; Bel Air from Melbourne – the idea here is let’s not piss about, make it clear, move on.
And that holds true for the songs themselves: while Belair Lip Bombs are economical with a tight 34 minutes for their ten songs, Teen Jesus make the Victorians look almost prog with their ten songs barely making it past a we-aren’t-here-for-a-haircut 29 minutes.
Portents? Yes, I think you could say that. Especially if you add in the fact these are two bands playing terribly unfashionable guitar rock, each with a touch of sophistication and a balancing touch of simplicity.
Setting aside Balcony, which is far too close in shape, sound and style to Wet Leg, (from diffident delivery of its cooler-than-you lyrics to its choppy rhythm and razor guitars) to see beyond, Teen Jesus like to ride a classic ‘90s indie mode of intensity surrounding melodies that are a softened guitar tone away from being straight pop.
And despite the song lengths, they don’t hurry through them really, with the relatively fast Mine still not quite at a gallop, as if they’ve left space to go harder live, and Watching Me Leave seemingly poised to unleash for all of its two minutes and twenty nine seconds.
Anna Ryan, Jaida Stephenson, Neve Van Boxsel and Scarlett McKahey don’t do throwaway so that Daylight, which has a chorus hook you could hang a rugby prop from, almost hides it away beneath pushed-forward rhythm and massed voices, and Unscarred, a sweet song they could lend to Foo Fighters if they wanted to be generous to old men in need, adds just enough mid-section rough to almost distract you from its prettiness.
Meanwhile, Bait, a less obvious nod to Wet Leg drollery – puts its swing front-facing but beefs up the support and Talking (second only to Wonderful for phone torch in the air potential) leans into the rolling rhythm.
The Belair Lip Bombs, appropriately for 21st century Melbourne, have more jangle along with the probing lead lines, often with guitars chasing each other like the spritely Another World and the more hectic Again And Again, a song which might in another life have been a Dr Feelgood offcut. There’s a sweetness here too, with Burning Up a ballad that circles you like a captivating orbital shot, everything else slightly blurry on the fringes but the centre holding you gripped.
If Back Of My Hand brings in something almost funky that the Deal sisters or Sydney’s Clouds could have really got behind, and convinces because it never really deviates, Price Of A Man disappoints by not finding a route out of the familiar, as if Maisie Everett, Daniel Devlin, James Droughton and Michael Bradvica slipped into its greyness and curled up comfortably.
But the hearty classicism of the band’s influences finds its feet in If You’ve Got The Time, with its mix of west coast melody, east coast tension and Midwest soloing, Smiling, which convinces you the highway between Sydney and Melbourne once diverted through Tom Petty’s place, and the beachside feel of Cinema, its coastal groove definitely more Mornington than Huntington.
There’s a lot to like in these two bands. They’re good.
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