Best ‘Tudes is the kind of collection that has a bunch of songs where the titles of said songs are sung in the lyrics. Is there like a genre for that kind of music or something? Oh yeah: Pop music. Teenage Moods make pop music (of the lightly-punk persuasion), and a lot of it apparently. MJMJ scooped up more than an hour of their output from a handful of limited-run tapes the band have released since 2009, and according to the liner notes, the tracks sort of traverse a backward timeline. Each side of the cassette represents one of those previous releases, but the way the songs rattle off, it might as well be this ONE, EPIC Teenage Moods album — and that suits the band just fine here. Fans of Sebadoh, The Thermals, and even, say, The Shins’ first record for those softies buried in there (see: “Grow”) will find a lot to love in these four-tracked marvels, namely tight, concise songwriting with clever arrangements, cheery melodies, and grooves made for cruising. There’s not a lot in the way of dynamic range, and tempos hang around a basic mid-jog pace, but that’s OK though that stuff might come in handy for them down the line. Still, they’ve got that volume and that tempo down absolutely pat, and the band’s energy bursts through it all with those splashy cymbals, hand-claps, chunky guitar riffs, vocals with a neck-vein-visible throat to them, playfully vicious as a tiger kitten might be, so it’s all good. So very, very good. If you missed the photo at the top-left corner of this review, this comes on a super-sweet 2xCS format, tunes tucked away on red and blue tapes in one of those over-sized nylon cases with a photocopied ‘zine inside. What a great introduction to a great band that’s destined for nothing but more greatness.
More about: Teen Moods, Teenage Moods
