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Teen Sensations | ||
| Format : | CD album (compilation) | Tracks : | Cool Chick #59 + |
| Release Date : | 9 November 1993 | Stacey's Cupboard * | |
| Country : | USA | Blonde | |
| Label : | Seed (14241-2) | Momentum | |
| Encouragement Kiss + | |||
| Production : | The Earthmen | Roll * | |
| Mixing : | Laurence Maddy & Nick Batterham | Too Far Down * | |
| Engineering : | Laurence Maddy, assisted by Moira Lawson | In The South + | |
| * Recorded By : | Chris Thompson | Flyby * | |
| * Remixed By : | Laurence Maddy & Nick Batterham | Elephant | |
| * Mastered By : | Meredith Brooks | Notes : | Special guest vocalist Maud is actually Caroline Kennedy (of Plums / Deadstar) |
Special Guests : |
Maud - Vocal on Elephant; Snag - Tamborine; Loz - Organ on Elephant; Caroline - Vocal on Too Far Down | Credits : | All Tracks by Goldberg / Stevens / Earthmen except + Goldberg / Stevens / Batterham / Earthmen |
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| Record To Watch -
Sensational album. Sensational first week. Give it a spin. Slumberland's Mike Schulman first turned me onto these guys when his label released the Cool Chick #59 single earlier this year. I instantly fell in love with the way these Aussies balance their noise with pop hooks and gentle harmonies. Needless to say, the minute The Earthmen's Teen Sensations CD came in, it went right into my player. Even with overblown expectations, Teen Sensations doesn't disappoint. The disc's opener, Cool Chick #59 is truly a golden moment for any noisy pop lover, especially when the ba-ba-bas fight to be heard above the wondrous, swirling din. Encouragement Kiss is another favourite that will win a few hearts with lines like "You're giving me an encouragement kiss/it's not what I though it would be/it's not what I want it to be/oh no, not at all". Also check out Roll, Stacey's Cupboard and Blonde. Gavin (US), 5 November 1993. Linda Ryan.
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| Australia's
Summershine label has been licensing Northern hemisphere talents like Velvet Crush, Luna
and Velocity Girl for a few years now, but the label's also got its own rich stable of
Aussie artists, the Earthmen being one on it's top-notch groups. Seed Records offers us
the Earthmen's domestic debut, Teen Sensations, which serves as a fine introduction to
both the group and the label. Although the Earthmen share a love for bristling guitar pop
with their northerly cousins, the Earthmen's variety is neither fragile nor ethereal;
instead, a crunchy guitar sound, sometimes jangly, sometimes beefy, and solid song
structures dominate. The Earthmen sprinkle their heady pop songs with the fuzzy push and
pull of Dinosaur Jr, but their songs are also rife with bubbly guitar strums and Scott
Steven's sweet yet commanding vocals. Right off the bat, the lazy pace, rippling guitars
and harmonies of Cool Chick #59 (recently available on a Slumberland 7") makes a
strong impression, before turning things over to Stacey's Cupboard's swooning guitars and
sparkling chorus. Momentum's plodding rhythms crash down hard, Roll has a crisper,
Blur-like air about it, and the guitars soar the highest on Flyby. CMJ - New Music Report (US), 15 November 1993. Lydia Anderson.
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| Coming on like a
Teenage Fanclub fan club, this Aussie quintet irradiates slacker ennui with slurry guitars
and deceptively simple words. The results are alternately languid and dangerous. And while
the Earthmen stir up quite a galvanising racket on a few numbers, they're likely to remain
unsung until they start writing songs that stick. Entertainment Weekly (US), 21 January 1994. Doug Brod.
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| Just because they
are at almost every moment readily comparable to many other guitar-based indie pop bands
(The Lemonheads, the Boo Radleys, the Wonderstuff, the Wedding Present, Ride) shouldn't be
held against the Earthmen's Teen Sensations. The album has many a well-wrought pop song
from the Australian fivesome. Stacey's Cupboard starts as straight jangle which melts into
an interesting fuzz cloud. Blonde is quintessential melodic garage pop, dramatic guitar
solo and all. Encouragement Kiss is a strummy and possibly even jaunty feel-good anthem. Roll is another melodic-yet-kind of noisy song. Not quite a breakthrough, but a solid American debut from Melbourne's Earthmen. Net Magazine (US), January 1994. Matt Birnbaum.
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| Gotta hand it to
those Australians - they do the '70's right. Like their most revered predecessors, the
Hoodoo Gurus(?!), the Earthmen lovingly cling to their favourite pieces of a bygone era
(meandering intros, slightly off-centre melodies, ba-ba-ba backing harmonies,
distorto-spacey guitar noise, and god love 'em, organ) without resorting to high camp or
blatant rewrites. Most importantly, they infuse their music with a much-needed dose of
today. Cool Chick #59 might have Evan Dando mumbling "wish I wrote that". That
track, along with Stacey's Cupboard, Blonde, Encouragement Kiss, Roll, Too Far Down and
Elephant strike the imagination as ____ with decades-old vision, dropped to Earth from a
clunky old satellite for hungry '90s audiences to devour. Aquarian (US), 2-9 February 1994. Mike Daly.
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| Atmospheric pop.
Jangly guitars and pure-note vocals. Like a bird flying through volcano updrafts. I don't
really know what that means. Grinding bass closes a fist around the guitars before they
get too frilly. The drums play like vocals. Vaguely English wave, vaguely beautiful pop.
Hey, if I had more room, I'd be less cryptic. Flavour: A Danish with horseradish. It's nice, but it's got an edge. Buy it?: It'll wash all that grunge out of your ears. Spectrum, University of Toledo (US), 2 February 1994.
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| For those interested
in somewhat lighter fare, this is a fantastic album of great melodies and upbeat
instrumentals. Stacey's Cupboard is a magnificent addicting song. This is also a great
album for distortion fanatics in the Husker Du vein. The Alburquerque Tribune (US), 3 February 1994.
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| Teen Sensations is a
collection of songs from their previously released 7"s and mini LP which were
originally recorded for Summershine Records, now available in the US via Seed Records.
Their music is similar to Ride and fellow Australians Godstar. The guitars range from
jangly to fuzzy. The clean cut vocals are a perfect compliment. Between Godstar and The
Earthmen this could be the start of the new Australian sound. All that Magathang (US), Jan/Feb 1994.
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| Credit where it's
due, Evan Dando's championing of Aussie indie has given that scene a welcome lift.
Melbourne's Earthmen seize their moment with Teen Sensations, a mini LP which combines
their first two singles with new material. Drawing heavily on the US and UK guitar scenes,
they attempt to impose a sense of their own identity by employing a haphazard mixture of
latter day shoe-gazing and Superchunk-inspired rifferama. Likewise, they struggle to find
a medium that accurately conveys their favourite subject matter: the awkwardness of youth
and the age old chestnut of boy/girl relationships. 'Cool Chick #59' is the exception,
transplanting the melodies and harmonies of Brian Wilson from the West Coast to Bondi
Beach. The other nine tracks strive hard to impress, but off-load an amateurish mixture of
angelic harmonies and white noise finales. The profile may have been raised, but there's
no buried treasure to be found here. Vox (UK), June 1994. Mike Gayle.
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| Melbourne outfit
show an uncanny knack of punching out pop tunes which can almost be guaranteed to turn
into wild guitar frenzy. Sheffield Telegraph (UK), 8 April 1994.
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