Teenage Harlets, Up the Fixx

Some bands live to record, and some bands record to live. The Teenage Harlets (their misspelling, not mine) clearly fall in the latter category. Everything about this low-fidelity burst of uptempo, surf-inflected garage rock seems to prove that their virtues are meant for a live setting: their songs, while energetic, are incredibly samey; the lyrics are incredibly generic and uninspired even by garage rock standards; and for the most part, they aren’t distinguishable anyway, because of the crappy recording. But you can tell from the record they definitely have the in-your-face attitude and outsized performance approach that probably means their sets are great fun; a cursory YouTube search confirms this, revealing lots of, um, interactivity in their shows. So, yeah: I’ll go see them if they come to town, but I can’t really recommend this record when there’s so many better garage records out there. (Stock up your Oblivians and Thee Headcoats records first, and then we’ll talk.)