Photo by Maysa Askar

Looking back at the past decade-plus, the sound of Philly’s weirder indie rock aspirations would not be where they are today — whether you want to refer to Alex G’s gonzo bedroom-pop-gone-mainstream or the more experimental amalgamation between shoegaze and noise-pop — without Teen Suicide breaking its mold from DIY trenches first before any of it became TikTok trend.

Perpetually an antithesis to everything going on in the modern current, Sam Ray’s experimental punk band has shape-shifted plenty over the years in various lineups, temporarily cancelled name changes, stylistic detours and offshoots, and typically navigating outside the bubble of whatever medium music consumption is currently happening in. Through it all, the band has convincingly sounded like they were content hanging on by a thread, which is no critique of the quality of their art itself. It’s just that you never knew if Teen Suicide would go on to survive another day. And yet, when I saw the band play this past weekend at Run for Cover’s Something In The Way fest, it felt like for the first time ever, the band seemed like they found their own version of peace by taking control of the chaos, self-made or not.

That’s even more evident on “Idiot”, the first single from their forthcoming album, Nude descending staircase headless, the band’s first proper studio album with a producer in Mike Sapone (Taking Back Sunday, Cymbals Eat Guitars) tied to its tethering. Between Ray’s own output in Teen Suicide, its grungy shoegaze counterpart American Pleasure Club, the electronic abrasions of Ricky Eat Acid, and his creative and life collaborator Kitty Ray’s own subversion on the pop machine in her own regard, it makes sense that Teen Suicide’s embrace of stability here gives the band new life using their polymathic telepathy to challenge the status quo with some really heavy riffed, nearly-metal shit and harmony in spiritual bliss. “Even though a part of me has died, I still want to try,” they sing. It’s the resurrection Teen Suicide deserve, fully concentrated.

Directed by: Wyatt Carson

Teen Suicide’s Nude descending staircase headless will be released April 17th on Run for Cover Records.