When Twisted Teens broke through with their second album, Blame the Clown, only five months ago, the New Orleans duo’s southern-fried mix of garage rock, early punk, rockabilly, and country screamed both “First thought is absolutely best thought” and “Wait until I show you what else I can do.” But if their last album presented the band at their most gleeful and cocky, ready to call the world as they saw it, then Florida Water Blues takes place the morning after: a touch more vulnerable now that the liquid courage has subsided and the hangover is setting in. Blame the Clown may be where the makeup was first put on, but Florida Water Blues is where the tears start to show.
That’s not to say that Twisted Teens have suddenly upended their approach. On the surface, there’s very little that separates Florida Water Blues from Blame the Clown, which isn’t a bad thing at all. The band still churns out perfectly bite-sized garage rock nuggets that could compete with Jay Reatard at his heyday, with the likes of “Top of the World Hwy No. 2” and opener “Why Did You Miss It?” destined to become singalongs at their live shows. Caspian Hollywell still sings like he’s trying to exorcise his gnarled vocal chords even further, attempting to dislodge the decades of cigarette smoke and whiskey shots that have stained his throat. The riffs he churns out are still rough and fuzzy and hit like a baseball bat, serving as the foundation of every song; RJ Santos’ steel guitar playing is the constantly hovering staccato accent, a piercing counterpoint or sharp accompaniment to the bluntness at play. The drum machine seems to have been boosted to honorary third member, or at least Hollywell and Santos are having more fun programming it. Cranking its volume into the red as heavily as its living cohorts, they let it burst in to restart their songs, its rickety and lopsided beats creating a spontaneity that breaks up their well-honed formula.
A melancholy has seeped into the band’s songwriting, and this is what gives Florida Water Blues its color. Twisted Teens’ lyrics reflect a hard-fought, blue collar existence, but tracks like Blame the Clown’s “Not Real” balanced their tough lessons with dogged perseverance (and a chorus you could drunkenly yell along to). On Florida Water Blues, every character seems to be just scraping by. The stripper in “Dancer” is miserable about her clientele, her job, and the inability to escape. The band may love their Louisiana home, but on “Swamp,” it’s still “in the crotch of America” and “smells like ket and two-piece chicken.” And no matter how raucous “Hand Me a Cigarette” may get, the quiet defeat at its core is obvious from the moment its fingerpicked intro starts. The band has pushed their country influences a little closer to the front this time: Santos frequently deploys wilting slide moves that would break a cowboy’s heart, and Hollywell is a little more willing to let his guitar talk without distortion.
The album ends with “Sun Go Down,” a true-blue country ballad. Discarding all their hallmarks and stripping down to just guitar and vocals, the band reveals an alternate path they could pursue: earnest, lonesome troubadours. With yet another album due later this year that’s apparently influenced by Blood on the Tracks, there’s a chance this might end up happening. For now though, Twisted Teens seem content to continue as gutter-punk rabble rousers, even if Florida Drinking Water reveals some unexpected depth in their mythmaking.
