Quietly devastating, deliciously escapist in its lofi stylings, and packed with apathy you could revel in, it held up a mirror to the class of teens growing up on social media.
Now, almost ten years on, Teen Suicide deftly maintain everything that contributed to their trailblazing atmospheres. They’ve always been exploratory, and they continue to be so on honeybee table at the butterfly feast.
There are plenty of moments that are quintessentially Teen Suicide, and wonderfully so: “complaining in dreams” is an understated highlight, blurry cymbal intertwining with ethereal, muted guitars, whispery reverb, lyrics like “everything is everything is everything is nothing / and when they finally kill me i hope at least they make it funny”. There are numerous new initiations into the Teen Suicide hall of fame; “complaining in dreams” is joined by the dark jaunt of “get high, breathe underwater (#3)”, the twitching lo-psych swirl that is “how to get out of america without a trace”. If you came into honeybee table looking for nostalgia and new stick-and-poke ideas, you’ll find them abundant.
There’s something about honeybee table that, where other bands fall under fire, allows Teen Suicide to evade such critique. Recreating a trademark sound, especially one so distinctly you and associated with a specific time, more often than not leads to age-old accusations of stagnation - but Teen Suicide are simultaneously too intentional to feel like that, and feel like they just wouldn’t care if you thought that.
Their slacker-punk authenticity emanates brighter than ever from every euphoric, cathartic riff that punctuates honeybee table’s runtime. The first punch lands in “death wish”, a crescendo of guitars and howls that ebbs and flows like a desperate breakdown that only the mellowness of the “get high…” can tonic. “violence violence” is another especially vicious one, fuzzing right into the post-rock side of psychedelia through some of the fastest paced drumming Teen Suicide have ever released, alongside an onslaught of screams, then delicate voicenotes, then screams again. If metalcore bands stick a gentle interlude on to give us a break, Teen Suicide have done the opposite here: “violence violence” exists to break us out of sleepy paralysis.
Whether it’s a croon over a feather-light acoustic guitar, or a scruffy, fuzzy garage-punk whirlwind, Teen Suicide have hit the mark consistently. If they take another six years before their next record, it’ll be ok - all the more time to inject honeybee table with as much love and nostalgia and memory as the rest of their back catalogue.
