It List: Wednesday

Teenage Cool Kids/Weed Hounds/Final Club (Rubber Gloves): Holy crap. I hadn't listened to Teenage Cool Kids in a REALLY long time up until a few hours ago, and they sound radically different than what I remember from the last time I heard them. Feel free to check out the new songs they're streaming on their Facebook page if you wanna hear what I mean-- long gone are the ecstatic pop-punk Descendentisms I recall from their earlier material, replaced with some very catchy and competently crafted nods to mid 90's College Radio chart toppers, most notably Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill, with smaller yet audible nods to Silver Jews (mostly through the vocals), Dinosaur Jr., and others that I can't even recall right now because it was a long time ago and they weren't that good anyway. It's strange when you consider their past, but this slack-influenced sound seems to suit Teenage Cool Kids quite well, even if it makes me a little bit nervous about a full-on 90's indie revival if stuff like this catches on with the "kids." Oh well, I guess it would be a lot better than Ishi or whatever people in Dallas are into these days-- Anyway, if these new tracks, pulled from their upcoming album Denton After Sunset, are any indication of what the rest of the record sounds like, then I think people outside of Denton will start to hear a lot more about these guys in the coming months-- they look to the past, sure, but Teenage Cool Kids are certainly able to update these sounds and put their own stamp on them. Pretty solid stuff all around. Meanwhile, New York's Weed Hounds have positioned themselves right in the middle of this lo-fi twee/ C86/Shoegaze revival. It's decent stuff, although you've heard it done, and re-done, much better.

Red Dons/Occult Detective Club/The People Men/Collick/The Atom Age (1919 Hemphill)