To say that "Big Schools", the opening track on Baby Teeth's third album, is both a patience and litmus test is true, but it's also far from the Chicago trio's fault. The song, about meeting a chick at an awesome frat party and more generally about how great it was to go to a college with a monstrous enrollment, is played earnestly and without a whiff of irony, like Robert Pollard with his leg kicks and British affectations, or Brandon Flowers doing whatever Brandon Flowers does. It then becomes a matter of my own taste that I find it so hard to sign off on beer-bongs and cornhole as the source of viable cultural expression, even when it's done well, as it is here. Even more, I realize the irony in that I have no problem with Thin Lizzy's bro-down "The Boys Are Back in Town", which Baby Teeth use as the foundation for "Schools". Hell, even Steely Dan's "My Old School" was at least about a drug bust.
Yet the fact that Baby Teeth go full bore on song one into an aesthetic that would no doubt make many Pitchfork readers run for the safety of their Hold Steady LPs makes me respect these dudes. Even better though, graduating from "Big Schools" dumped me out into a record that does what few American indie bands are willing to do nowadays: sound like a really good college bar band. These guys clearly grew up listening to classic rock radio and watching MTV, and I'm assuming they're in their early thirties-- if not, then they fake it well-- because integration of the FM era's most outre top 40 stuff, from glam to power pop, bandannaed cock-rock and New Romanticism, shouldn't come this easy, or sound this good.
This mix sounds over the top, sure, but it turns out that the best part of Beach is its sense of control-- not to be "tasteful," but just to stop things from flying over the top. Singer Abraham Levitan tempers his occasional histrionics with plenty of restraint, and the band thankfully eschews too much grandiosity in lieu of simple arrangements, sticky melodies, and hooks. "Shrine"s refrain puts Pollard's melodic swagger over a Fast Times at Ridgemont High bed, and "The Part You Play" bends a standard lovelorn lyric into a plaintive, almost soulful wail. Don't front: if the high-gloss danger and spiky synths of "Hustle Beach" and the geeky siren wails on "Snake Eyes" were made by a group from Paris, or posted on a .rar blog specializing in out of print early-80s New Wave, you'd be all over this.
Truth be told, the sociological part of my brain wants to position Baby Teeth as the lower-stakes, Midwestern Vampire Weekend, and my indier-than-thou side wants to assert that Dan Bejar does more inventive things with similar source material, while creating his own mythology to boot. While all of this stuff might be true on some level, none of it, again, has anything to do with the band. Sure, deep down they might think they're pulling one over on the world by sneaking bits of Billy Squier here and there. But who cares, right? It might be hard for some of us, but, especially when the biggest indie song of the year features a protagonist worried about his social status, it's a bit refreshing to hear a band clearly not looking over their shoulders.
