Review Summary: Tweenage angst has paid off well
We all know music is serious biznezz. Or at least that’s what we’re told. Or at least that’s what WE tell YOU.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret, dear readers…my random absences on this site tend to come about when that dam of serious music criticism in my mind is about to break; when I’m tired of treating the aural offerings of another random bunch of people with no shortage of awed reverence.
Maybe I’m out of touch. Maybe I’m old and boring. Maybe I’m there already. But after an enforced LIFE EMERGENCY ARGH absence, I bring good tidings.
Tweens, as the sharper minds among you will have already guessed, don’t exactly make music that Rodin’s Thinker would listen to. Rather, they make music how I like my sex: fast, loud and allowing me to wipe half of it from my memory without any real consequences.
It couldn’t be simpler: three people, a real racket and songs about love n’ other squishy things. It’s a child’s approximation of rock and roll, but that doesn’t mean it counts as anything less. It’s the kind of wilful abandon and immature outlook that made a helluva lotta people fall in love with the Ramones all that time ago.
Indeed, lead single “Be Mean” is the stuff of the school playground. Pull the hair of the one you like and vice versa. By the chorus you want to do that 60s thing where you hold your nose and shimmy to the floor. No mean feat for the more miserable people in this world (i.e. me).
If harking back to teenage ennui is your thing then this might just be the record for you. “Bored In The City” captures that itchy, adolescent ‘kicking around my home town’ feel, and will no doubt soundtrack many a highlights package and some bright and colourful music channel.
They continue to mine that vein with “Girlfriend” (love that basic but addictive riff), “McMicken” and “Don’t Wait Up” (basically “leave me alone, mum” in music form).
That’s not to say Tweens are the perfect crew. “Stoner”, an instrumental, is a stark reminder of their limitations as a musical outfit minus those cutesie-poo vocals (but worth a go for the fact you can sing along with to "We Are The Champions"), while “Want U” is just wretched. Really bad.
So don’t rock up to this one expecting some life-changing epoch. Just roll with the punches. Besides, and let’s be honest here, you won’t ever hear from Tweens again after this. Such is the musical cycle.
