Teen Suicide have created one of the most unique, dense, and impactful catalogs in modern indie rock, yet their new album, Nude descending staircase headless, does something they’ve never done before: it lets you in. It’s Teen Suicide’s first proper studio recording–the rare album that uses a leap in fidelity to propel a group not only to their most accessible form, but to their truest form. Nude descending staircase headless alchemizes all of the personality, nuances, and raw edges that make Teen Suicide special into an immediately gratifying release that’s faithful to their earlier music while also moving boldly forward. It’s an album made by artists who have genuinely evolved as people and musicians, and are now pushing themselves to make the best work of their careers.
Led by husband and wife Sam and Kitty Ray, Teen Suicide have experienced the strange success of many beloved cult bands where the influence of their pioneering blend of scrappy emotional punk, bombastic post-rock, and lofi charm has fully permeated the underground to such a degree that it’s even seeped into the mainstream. And not just Teen Suicide, but the entire constellation of musical projects between the two musicians–TS alter-ego American Pleasure Club, Starry Cat, The Pom-Poms, Kitty, Ricky Eat Acid, and more–can be heard throughout contemporary music, both as key figures in the enduring 2010s bedroom pop wave, and in farther reaches , like their music being sampled by rappers or their raw production techniques traveling the chain of influence to arrive in pop songs. Real crossover success sometimes eludes the innovators themselves, but if Nude descending staircase headless is any indication, Teen Suicide are determined to avoid that fate.
