PRESS CLUB • Late Teens (hand numbered, Half Clear/Half Mint) • LP
PRESS CLUB • Late Teens (hand numbered, Half Clear/Half Mint) • LP
Press Club are sick of your fake shit. “I don’t like listening to a vocalist that I don’t believe,” lead singer Nat Foster said in a recent interview. “If they’re telling me something and it feels half-arsed, that frustrates the shit out of me.” You’ll be glad to know that this Australian rock band’s debut album, ‘Late Teens’ is sincere as fuck.
We’d expect nothing less from a band that have been staggeringly honest ever since the release of their furious 2017 single ‘Headwreck’, where Foster sings that she’s “not gonna give up easy” and then “give everything I know”. Each release that’s followed sees the Melbourne-base band dig in deep, which is why their debut album ‘Late Teens’ will leave a remarkable imprint.
‘Late Teens’ acts as an exorcism of those chaotic and confusing adolescent emotions. Highlight ‘Ignorance’, ignited by razor-wire guitars and clattering drums, is a tale of finding your place in the world and realising when you’re wrong. “My young heart/There’s nothing to say but I’ve messed up” they roar despite being roundly humbled. ‘Suburbia’, meanwhile, is a soaring rock anthem, one that examines where we’ve come and where we’re at, and where that leaves our emotions and allegiances: “I left my heart in the suburbs”, Foster chants, seeming nostalgic and defiant all at once.
They may be misplaced, torn-up and unsure of their place on the planet, but on ‘Late Teens’, a enjoyable and raucous rock record, you can bet on Press Club on telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but he truth – no matter the fall-out.