The Residents — Lonely Teenager
The album features eight tracks in all, seven Resident’s originals & one cover version in the form of Hank William’s “Six More Miles to The Graveyard”. Mainly the album has quite a slow, somber & often oddly theatrical feel to it, with the tracks paces never really get much above a mournful gallop or a slurred waltz. On the whole the album works well through-out with each track offering up new weird yet slightly dozy sonic treats. The stand-out moments in both oddness stakes & atmospherics have to be in the long spoken word type parts that appear in a few tracks. For example “The Unseen Sister” which finds a middle-aged women telling the story of her mysterious, sinister & possible imaginary little sister, who when she was little knocked over a boiling pot of Christmas tree pasta shapes over her mothers face.
Sound wise the tracks mix together subdued Wormwood period type guitar textures, unhinged yet mid-paced ambience, Off-kilter electroncia & The Residents distinctive muilt genre blend of sonics. Mr. Skull, the singing Resident ,or Randy as he’s now known is in fine form going from ramshackle soaring, to theatrical chattiness, onto demented bouncing…through this time around his vocals seem more set back in the mix giving one the feeling as if he’s singing & talking from another time or dimension.
All told “Lonely Teenage” is another deranged and at times unsettling collection of songs from The Residents. It’s not a classic Resident album by any means, but it's a great and quirky re-think & re-mould of some of the projects known & lesser known tracks from the projects 40 year back catalogue