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The UK’s Teenage Casket Company will surprise you in a lot
of ways — certainly picking the name Teenage Casket Company
being the first. This band’s ingredients are comprised of
a technical devotee in drummer Mike Hollinshead; a true glam fan
in bassist Bob Lane; a punk rocker and talented songwriter in guitarist/vocalist
Jamie Delerict; and a frontman, guitarist and songwriter in Rob
Wylde who brings his own take on glam rock and fuses that with a
Butch Walker-type modern sound that brings everything together.
In other words … Teenage Casket Company is really freakin’
good.
(If
you want to hear Wylde’s interview with Hardrock Haven click
here.)
While
the band hasn’t yet been together two years, they already
have a new album on Trash Pit Records called Dial It Up.
They will remind you of American bands like, well, American Hi-Fi,
and will also draw comparisons to bands like New Found Glory and
Frickin’ A.
Dial
It Up starts with “One Thing You Don’t Need.”
Throughout the album, you can tell Delerict adds a punk vibe to
everything he plays. It makes the music more real, more raw. Wylde
shouts out the lyrics and if you are a Butch Walker fan, the construction
of the songs align with Walker’s, one of the best songwriters
in the biz. So that’s a compliment. Wylde and Delerict know
how to sing and harmonize together, another of the album’s
overall strengths.
While
the first song was hyper, the chorus on the second track, “Down
On Luck,” is thick with melody and actually has a strong ’80s
pop sensibility. Song one was good, but song two leans closer to
great.
They
miss a step with the song “Bad Girl,” where the vocals
are average and the song just isn’t their best. But the drumming
is flat out stellar. Hollinshead plays within himself most of the
time, but here he’s just showing off. These guys must be an
incredible live act. The next song, “Another Part of Me,”
again shows off Hollinshead’s abilities.
“Story
of My Life” is not a shout out to Social Distortion, purposely,
but it could be. Wylde sings a little lower and a little more nasal
in parts of this song, with an edge to his voice, and well …
it’s good enough to be compared to Social D.
Now,
the best song here arrives at track 8, a slower, melodic rocker
called “Beautiful.” Instead of the punk style guitar
playing, this is more precise, more haunting at the beginning. They
add in keyboards for a new effect as well. Wylde is a professed
fan of Davy Vain, and if you took Vain and Butch and melded their
voices, it’d sound something like this. During the verses,
the song just chugs, with a keyboard undercurrent keeping the song
just soft enough. The pointed and poignant lyrics of “You
know I’d walk a thousand miles just to hear you call my name.
If I had to live without you … bring the rain,” show
these guys can pen words that are more than just filler.
All
in all, this is a step above many of the bands that have major label
backing and you will hear on “modern rock” radio. Obviously,
the drummer could put those other bands to shame, but the duo of
Wylde and Delerict seem to have a chemistry that you don’t
often hear. It’s not often you can put in a CD from a band
you’ve never heard of and like it the first time and the whole
way through.
Plus,
the name Teenage Casket Company is damn near impossible to forget,
so you might as well start liking them, cuz that name is stuck in
your head now.
www.teenagecasketcompany.com
www.trashpit.co.uk
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