Twisted Teens - Twisted Teens

Cas P. Ian spent years fronting the folk-punk band Blackbird Raum before surfacing in New Orleans with something considerably stranger. The debut Twisted Teens album is, in his own words, an attempt to make something that felt like a garage rock record but definitely is not a garage rock record. Eleven songs, thirty-two minutes, nothing over three and a half minutes, and not one of them behaves.

The credits give away the trick. Guitar and singing by Cas P. Ian, bass by CPN Hollywell, drums by C-SPAN, all of them the same person. Razor Ramone's pedal steel is the one real outside voice, and it hands "Sister Heat" a country undertow that has no business working as well as it does. "Twisted Teen" opens on fuzzed-out guitar and oversaturated vocals, "Marionette" and "Tic Tac Toe" lean into crooked country-pop, and "Waiting For The Whip" and "Cool Former Friend" pull hard toward post-punk drama. Magnus Nymo drums on one track, Cameron Snyder adds keys to another.

What sets it apart is where the lyrics go. This is a punk record about masculinity, sex, and mysticism, thick with tarot imagery and medieval archetypes, built around a centerpiece called "The Valley Spirit Never Dies" that takes its title from Ursula K. Le Guin's translation of the Tao Te Ching. Songs end abruptly, synth interludes appear from nowhere, and the whole thing coheres anyway. On release it got read as one of the most original things happening in contemporary DIY punk, and nothing about it has softened since.

Reissued on random-colored vinyl with hand-stamped center labels and a lyric sheet. Mastered by Jaxon Vesely. Eleven tracks on Chain Smoking Records, CSR 033.