There are definitely some bands that are easier to get into than others. Some you need to sit with, think on, and get a little lost in before you fully appreciate what they have to offer. Others have an appeal that is as direct and blunt as a stray nail piercing your palm. Washington D.C. duo Teen Mortgage are clearly the latter. You don't even have to listen to them to get this impression, either. Look at the cover of their latest EP Smoked. It has a zombie getting smeared on the pavement after tumbling dead-ass over empty-head from an unseen, but apparently, perilous height. A perfect visualization of the way that one's libidinal drive interacts with the wall of impassible sound that the band conjures- as in, it will splatter into shards and goo like a dropped jar of preserves. The image however holds a small secret. Besides, being visually and thematically striking, it is also a reference to Fondation Skateboarding's That's Life tape, whose cover features a young Corey Duffel flatout painting the concrete with his face after botching a grind. These guys are clearly connoisseurs of underground culture and it shows up in their music as well. There are so many bizarre and delightful touchpoints that Teen Mortgage seamlessly integrates into their incongruous wretch and pummel that hearing their record is almost like experiencing a truncated tribute to the last thirty years of underground rock and roll. There is the pelvis-breaking low-end of the mean and danceable squall of the title track that sounds like Jesse F. Keeler of Death from Above 1979 backing up Ty Seagel as he rehearses a punched-up version of his early material. Then there is the way that Oasis's pop-infused psychedelic probings are suffused throughout the stomping clap of "Ghost Girl" like the scent of perfume on old clothes. Lastly, there is the sharp and stipulated hooks that drag "Can I Live" out of the gutter and into the searing light of day, where it steadily garners momentum like a piece of heavy machinery with a faulty emergency brake careening down a hill and into a farmer's market, a track that combines the terse melodic discernment of a group like the Strokes with the terminal perception-altering post-sludge plunge of Big Business. Coming away from Smoked is like fleeing a fire in a record store, it will leave you shook and coughing with a faint dusting of vinyl and nostalgia clinging to your hair and skin. Even though you barely escaped with your life the first time, you may find yourself possessed by an urge to go back in to see what else you can salvage- a product of a sort of adrenaline-tempered muscle memory and shock. My advice: grab a pack of tall boys and get back in there champ! Get Smoked!
