The Teenages - Reality Check Album Review
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The Teenages
Reality Check
Merok
Album Review
Thinking of France in a musical context is akin to flicking through the channels of a digital set-top box. Start at zero and work up to 500, occasionally bypassing the historical and nature programmes, sometimes pausing for the odd documentary about low budget porn that you know you shouldn't be watching, every once in a while passing through the odd music channel, most of which are shrouded in horrendous Eurobeat squeaks and snares. If Charles Aznavour was the history, Serge Gainsbourg was the nature (albeit in a less dignified way) and the likes of Sash were the undercurrent of those aforementioned music channels, then Parisian trio The Teenagers would be that documentary we're careful not to dwell on too long.
Put any other way The Teenagers would be dismissed as misogynistic perverts; if this record is meant to signify their own 'Reality Check' then for the rest of us parts of it are quite disturbing. Unless of course it's nothing more than a tactical move; shock value and all that? Why else would any band litter their record with more swearwords and sexually suggestive cusses than a blue version of the Oxford Dictionary could house in its many hundred pages? Without resorting to nationalistic virtues and accusations of xenophobia oneself, there's obviously something pretty explosive about 'Reality Check', almost like a feeling that if it isn't released soon, things are about to burst quite spectacularly - and no, we aren't talking about their collective undergarments either.
You see, 'Reality Check' should be a really awful record. The Macc Lads were doing this kind of thing - admittedly with slightly less musical ability - two decades ago and it wasn't that long ago that The Bloodhound Gang were selling millions of records on the back of "doing it doggystyle". However, in the current climate where nothing's really that shocking any more, this album actually houses at least half-a-dozen incessantly hummable, perfectly danceable tunes among its smut-flavoured quota.
Take opener 'Homecoming' for example, all new wave guitars circa 'Turn On The Bright Lights' and LCD-style beats. Singer Quentin Delafon sings - or should that be pants? - "I fucked my American Cunt" seductively over the top. It shouldn't work - 99 times out of 100 it wouldn't - but on this occasion it seems most fitting both in the context of the band's persona and the record in general. In fact, listen to Bono Must Die's robotic remix to really understand this track; it will be a staple of the alternative club scene for years to come, mark my words.
Elsewhere, Delafon boasts "I'm not in love" ('Love No') as if 10cc never existed, while his colleagues don their best Clash attire to lyrics about wearing kitten masks and being chased by boys in Nike caps for the punk-tinged 'Streets Of Paris'. 'Wheel Of Fortune' meanwhile implies that "No one would be dancing this way if Michael Jackson hadn't made music" over a beat that is unmistakeably mid-80s discotheque, while 'Feeling Better' - all New Order basslines circa 'Ceremony' - and 'French Kiss', which in a parallel universe could be the sound of Simian Mobile Disco going prog-rock offer a brief respite from the Benny Hill-style girl chase punctuating the album.
The rest? Well, 'Starlett Johansson', 'Fuck Nicole', 'Ill'.take your pick really. Although likely to be dismissed as scenesters by many - whatever that is in French? - The Teenagers have made a more than accessible debut album that crosses both the decency line in subject matter and more importantly several boundaries where musical genres are concerned.
If the teenage epitaph remains "live fast, die young", then 'Reality Check' is a more than appropriate soundtrack.
3.5/5
Dom Gourlay