Indiana’s Gloryhole makes no bones about its love of the dirty and hashed up masses of Fountain Square and beyond. The label has grown into a collective of like-minded individuals foaming at the mouth with anger at a stagnate music scene, eager and willing to shake it up at every turn. After two years of turning their neighborhood into a raucous host (including a day-long block party known as CATARACTS), the label seems to be turning its attention to bigger and better things without losing its grasp on down home and half-baked bands better than what your big cities are churning out. So meet Teenage Strange (which locals will be thankful to realize is the new charismatic vortex of ex-Kemps frontman Jared Birden), which amp up the Stuntman Mike/Snake Plissken rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle with the burst of a band free from the bondage of the bong. A-side “Eerie Energy” is reminiscent of your mother’s QOTSA; a song of driving riffs and broken drum heads. The essence of cool drips from each repetitive stroke of the pick, slicked back hair, awesome tats, and torn clothes out on Route 66. The flip, “Zeitgeist” is reminiscent of early Black Rebel Motorcycle club; dangerously close to running off the highway in a haze of black leather and white smoke. Wisely, the 7-inch glows in the dark, so you can see where your cigarette is to light it in the pitch black of the desert or the back allies of SoBro.
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