TWISTED TEENS - THE HOLY CROSS TIGERS (LOSER EDITION) (COLOURED) VINYL

Why did people suddenly latch onto Twisted Teens, two guys who had been so far outside of the punk and indie rock industries for so long they come now with very strong opinions about said things? Well, there was that sound, sticky and warm, even when they were bunching up the blues inside of it, the way that Caspian’s life-pocked voice slipped against RJ’s surrealist steel shapes like lotion against an old scab. What’s more, though these songs sounded simple in the same way that early rock ’n’ roll or real American folk music did, they offered relatable stories in a language all their own, much like early rock ’n’ roll or real American folk music did. Elizabeth Cotten was a poet, Chuck Berry and Professor Longhair, too. Caspian’s songs were more real than precious, in the way of those predecessors. Sound met song without meeting much bullshit along the way, apart from the stories Caspian and RJ sometimes chose to share about themselves.

So this brings us, at long last, to the main event, to Twisted Teens’ moment of selling out to the big, bad indie rock machine, to their Sub Pop debut, The Holy Cross Tigers, or The Burgundy Album. Sorry to disappoint the skeptics, but these 13 songs were written and recorded in much the same way as their predecessors. RJ lives behind Caspian’s house now, but Caspian is the early riser. He’ll get out of bed, play the guitar until he finds a riff that feels good, put down a drum machine line, and play guitar and bass over it until the tune starts to lock into place. When RJ has finally found his first cup of coffee, and if he’s not off near the Arctic, he sits down and responds with his steel. The condenser mic goes above the kit, the podcast mic in the kick—real big-money stuff these days, going down in Holy Cross.

But something was different this time for Twisted Teens. The week RJ and Caspian made their first album was the very same week Caspian started dating someone he really liked. If you bounce around the world long enough, you’ll be in and out of a lot of relationships, but this one felt unique. They broke up last summer in a little beach town in Albania, then came back to New Orleans, still living together while she finished a school program. It was hell for Caspian. He wallowed, drinking too much and breaking his foot before he had another epiphany: “If you go make a record right now, this fucking lame breakup will pay for the rest of your life.” So he started writing and recording, RJ eventually spending three days talking back to the songs with his steel. It was like Blood on the Tracks, had it been made in a Motel 6.

The whole saga is within these songs. It starts with “Stalks,” the opener that toggles between flirty and frustrated, as if Caspian is trying to make it all last just a little longer while knowing he will fail. Devilish and moaning, RJ’s steel walks the same twisting line. Caspian howls out happier memories and current moans during “When We First Met,” a shout-out-loud joiner about the way couples go everywhere and come together in the blissful and lusty early days, a high water mark that they’ll never sustain. It’s a song about being drunk and sad and lonely because you remember the past, RJ weeping there alongside him through the steel—you have felt this way, too, right?