Releasing two leftover songs from their (unheard by me) Crawling EP, Teen Death's new single is a monster of sneering, over-the-top "grungepunk," and it's awesome. Where tons of bands try to approximate the lurch and lumbering feel of "Negative Creep" and "Touch Me I'm Sick," Teen Death actually gets it right. They sound like the "Dark Life is getting to me," "Drag" is screamed out with the vitriol of a 16 year old.


What makes this work too is the brevity, each song much less than two minutes, speeding through their hooks and fuzzy, stomping groove with the urgency of a hardcore band. It makes "Drag"'s gleeful pummeling opening/closing riff weirdly more powerful when it's over so fast, with the kind of cyclical feeling of "Talk Talk" by The Music Machine. One explosion of energy and it's over, the narrator trapped in his shitty little moment. And it should be said too that the single sounds excellent, the swamp guitar and Grohl-style drums perfectly captured and oddly poppy.


This might be a single but you really can't miss this one. Teen Death are the real deal, a whiny scumbag band who can make their forefathers proud. Perfect for the very last day of sun before the cold really sets in and you're stuck inside again.