Teenage Wrist are a difficult band to define. Over the past eight years the act have continually evolved their sound, a process that’s peaking with their third full-length Still Love. Reaching new heights in both scope and execution, the album sees the duo—Marshall Gallagher (vocalist, guitarist, bassist) and Anthony Salazar (drums, vocalist, percussion)—producing the album themselves to handcraft their most expansive collection of songs to date from the ground up. The result is a self-realized collection of songs that saw the band borrowing vintage gear, bringing in friends in the form of members from 311 and Softcult and incorporating tasteful pop sensibilities to craft a collection of songs that redefines the band’s sound while staying true to their guitar-driven roots. “With this album we were just trying to get ourselves out of the safety zone and into the danger zone,” Gallagher explains. “We took a lot of risks and it was a really fun record to make.”
Shall we take a little trip to Essex? It’s east of London but it’s definitely not east London, the land of Blur, Depeche Mode, The Prodigy, Dr Feelgood, wheeler-dealers and dodgy geezers, Maldon sea salt, blokes who wash their Ford Mondeos religiously every Sunday morning, Tiptree jam, Grayson Perry, nosey neighbours, rowdy clubs, Joey Essex, Dermot O’Leary, Squarepusher, Basildon Man, a place where ring road towns lazily bleed into beautiful stretches of countryside underneath widescreen skies. It’s down the A12 and to the birthplace of radio that we’re headed. Keep going past Brentwood and all its TOWIE tanning beds and take a left into Chelmsford, the home of RAT BOY. After a decade of global tours as far afield as China, Japan and the US, a period that has included diversions into hip-hop, US-influenced ska-punk, RAT BOY have come back to base. Their excellent new record ‘SUBURBIA CALLING’ is all about returning to their roots.