When we wrote about Twisted Teens’ debut album, it camped out in our best-read pages for well over a year. The numbers do not lie. Not a flash in the pan, but a slow and steady stream of curious listeners getting hooked and digging deeper. Word of mouth doing what it has always done best. A stray radio spin. A playlist add. Twisted Teens are that kind of band. Hear one song and you are not done.
The second LP landed this Friday. The underdog glow has faded, replaced by expectation. Press play and you quickly realize Twisted Teens could not care less. This is a band fully at ease in its own skin, unbothered by outside noise.
I almost want to describe parts of Blame The Clown as relaxed, even nonchalant compared to the debut. But that would be misleading. The looseness here is control. The confidence of a band that knows exactly how much to push and when to lean back. And so, catchy upbeat tunes (like Is it Real?, Not Real, and Circus Clown) alternate more lower paced contemplative ones (Who Could It Be, White Hot Coal). But the intensity level remains high throughout.
The voice of C.P.N. Hollywell, or Cas P. Ian, or whatever name he is operating under these days, remains one of the most distinctive in the underground. Sure it sounds good. But mere sounding good does not explain its power. It carries weight. There is emotional range in there that suggests a few extra lifetimes squeezed between choruses.
Razor Ramone aka Ramon Joseph Santos, threads everything together with his slide guitar that is more than decoration or a gimmick. It brings texture and tension, adding grit and a faint sense of melancholy, yearning and danger that keeps the songs from ever drifting into comfort.
Lo-fi garage rock, country ache, blues grit, and soul are blended so naturally, you almost forget that this is not standard procedure. Twisted Teens take rock-‘n’-roll history into 2026 in ways that makes you suspect its founding mothers and fathers are somewhere nodding in approval.
Blame The Clown is out now on LP at Jazz Life (Europe) and Chain Smoking Records.
so good!