Teenage Bottlerocket – Stay Rad!

Wyoming pop-punk outfit Teenage Bottlerocket is on the doorstep of their twenty year anniversary.  They have become an undeniable staple and reference point when it comes to three chord Ramones-inspired pop-punk, now one of the more reliable and active of their peers.  There’s a certain safety and comfort to their simple nostalgia-infused brand, and that they never take more than a couple of years between releases makes them a staple you can rely upon.  As such,Teenage Bottlerocket’s latest full length, Stay Rad!, offers up fourteen soon to be classic tracks that fans have come to expect.

The album opens with the punchy, no holds barred pop-punk rhythm of “You Don’t Get the Joke,” setting the scene for Stay Rad!’s commitment to snarky two-minute bursts.  It’s one of the more sonically aggressive tunes, with relentless riffs that add just the right amount of punch as the chorus loops the title.  But as with everything Teenage Bottlerocket does, fun is their prime directive.  As the album unfolds, each song’s charm rises to the top in choruses of singable harmonies.  Take “Death Kart,” which jovially bops along to the verse, “I burn down the open road, rockets ready to explode,” followed by the comedic juxtaposition, “toppin’ out at twenty five.”  On tracks like this the band never tries to be more than they are, which holds true to the goofy subject matter of “I Wanna Be a Dog” and their clear celebration to the inconsequential nature of their mission in “Stupid Song.”  Hidden at the tail end of the album, the band offers up something of a eulogy to former drummer Brandon Carlisle, who died unexpectedly back in 2015. But while the track is sorrowful, it serves more in celebration than in mourning.

While Teenage Bottlerocket isn’t known for taking risks, they do push their fun loving ways into parody territory with “Creature from the Black Metal Lagoon.”  The band sharpens their guitars and unleashes their inner metalhead with hardy riffs and the hardest chords this side of Wyoming. The band pokes fun at diehard metal fans that walk the walk and scoff at all but true classics like Slayer and Venom.  It’s a well suited mid-album highlight that helps disguise some of the stylistic sameness in the rest of the album.

Stay Rad! is an obvious addition to Teenage Bottlerocket’s catalogue.  The band’s tight command of simple pop-punk melodies remains as timeless now as it did twenty years ago.  Ray Carlisle’s and Kody Templeman’s shared vocal performances pace the album as always, carrying the disc alongside the comforting melodies that Teenage Bottlerocket is known as.  Without surprise, Stay Rad! is an easy recommendation for fans of fun loving pop-punk.