- Like any good punk record, Press Club’s debut outing Late Teens comes out swinging. Recorded live over the span of a week at The Aviary in Melbourne it’s punctuated by late nights, strained vocal cords and blind ambition. The eleven tracks on Late Teens are gnashing teeth, a dog straining at its collar.
Late Teens can often feel chaotic; the raw energy of the album is relentless, frenetic guitar bursts, and punchy bass only just cradling vocalist Natalie Foster’s unrestrained rasp. Each cut seemingly more fervid than the last, the Melbourne four-piece build tension incrementally throughout the album: weaponising double tracked drums on cut Let It Fall and rainfall captured as ambient noise behind Foster’s vocals on title track Late Teens. The cornerstone of the record, however, is Frank Lee’s percussion, which thuds out like the record’s heartbeat, it's lifeblood. Pulsing bass drum and spitfire snare snaps drive the record tirelessly, taking tips from The Who.
Closing track Stay Low, is emotional and dissonant, building to a cacophonous climax and dipping back down to an atypical harmonious and hushed Foster, accompanied only by a guitar, the last 4 minutes of the record sees it at its most dynamic. Garnering inspiration from her partly demolished home, brought down to make way for apartments, it is poignant as it is feverish.
Late Teens encapsulates the anxiety of change, of being an adult, but not feeling grown. It agitates and it eviscerates. It’s standing in the debris of your formative years as Press Club hand you the sledgehammer.
- Fiona Priddey.