There’s something Runaways-cool about Teen Jesus & The Jean Teasers, whose unison gang vocals catch you looking and holler, “Take a picture it’ll last longer!”
Teen Jesus & The Jean Teasers formed in Canberra when all members were aged 15, the day after they watched School Of Rock during a sleepover. We choose to imagine these rebels plotting world domination while smoking behind the shelter sheds. Originally a five-piece but now a party of four, they’ve been honing their musical chops together for a decade.
Opener Watching Me Leave’s sinister underbelly features crawling bass and dense riffs. Overlapped vocals – melodic meets monotone – double the stalkerish creepiness of this one.
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“Sippin’ on my whisky on the balcony…” – Balcony chronicles a secret tryst, with insouciant verses bringing Wet Leg to mind. Channelling a wild night out where nothing’s off limits, this standout track closes out with a cheeky chuckle – vivacious, like the one that opens Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran.
Glory is not all self-assured, aspirational party-girl fodder, though. Sometimes they’re feeling sassy, other times they’re secretly willing hotties at the bar to Turn Around and take notice – too shy to approach: “I’m not sure what I would even say if you walked up to me in real life someday.”
Daylight is a sweet, “everything is better with you” love song: “I wonder what it’s like to be someone like you in love with me/ I hope you don’t hate it” – everyone deserves to experience a crush of this intensity at least once in their lifetime. And if you have, this song will spark fond memories.
Harmonically delicious, Mine’s goth keys stabs add B-52’s edginess.
Guitarist Scarlett McKahey takes lead vocals for the first time on Mother, which is about “the built-up rage of watching incredible women being mistreated by inadequate men, over and over again since the beginning of time”. Aptly, this song concludes with a howling chorus.
Bait’s economical riff, executed with maximum conviction, stops us dead in our tracks every time we hear it: “Can’t play the player/ If you can’t play the game” – some of these pearlers are bound to make their way into schoolyard banter (see also: “Homebrand, not that hot”). Gotta appreciate those subtle cowbell accents, too.
All current Teen Jesus members contributed to the songwriting on Glory, which the presser brilliantly describes as “the conspiratorial eye roll you share with a girlfriend when a loser guy is talking”.
Listening to Glory also helps build self-worth, thanks to lyrical affirmations that belong on your fridge (eg. “If I’m too scared of what could happen, then nothing’s gonna happen at all”).
