ALBUM REVIEW: Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head

    Somewhere along the line when it comes to the great music community tradition, the Flamin' Groovies got branded an energetic, garage rock act with similarities to The Rolling Stones. This album in specific, Teenage Head, I've regularly seen compared to Stones albums like Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, and while I definitely hear it after some listens, I think that's a pretty big generalization. Sure, there's some basic foot in the blues and rock, but A: Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed are better albums (sorry, Groovies), and B: I think boiling this album down to being similar both puts big expectations on it, and also overshadows what actually does make this LP as good as it is. While the Groovies are solid rock and blues players, there's a definitive wackiness and gruff garage sound that the Stones just don't have. While it suffers from an occasionally same-y sound, the Groovies make up for this with an abundance of energy and a decisively rough approach to rocking out. It is, at the very least, a pretty fun album.

     The Groovies stick to a straightforward approach to rock and roll throughout, with a healthy dosage of garage and blues infused into the formula. Of course, calling this entirely a garage act is passing over some of the eclecticism in the performances that I can only liken to Captain Beefheart - in some ways, it very much feels like the group doesn't take themselves too seriously, and maybe that's what makes me like them. Straight from the opener, the thumping "High Flyin' Baby," there's a certain charm and lack of pretension that carries throughout the rest of the album. For me, the pinnacle of this joking atmosphere culminates on the song "Evil Hearted Ana," where the group pulls off one hell of a rockabilly parody, complete with a faux Elvis accent. While it's not the most enjoyable thing on this album, I'd be lying if I said the song wasn't supremely entertaining. Of course, there are moments where the band lets loose when rocking - the previously mentioned "High Flyin' Baby," a solid Randy Newman cover in "Have You Seen My Baby?," and the crashing title track "Teenage Head," a song that, in my mind, bares closer resemblance to a Stooges song than a Stones song - just turn up the distortion more and you're halfway there. This energy and earnestness gives a great quality to the group.

    When the group slows it down or gets in the 12-bar mood, they do it all right of course. "City Lights" is a great slide guitar-led track, and Jim Dickinson's honky tonk piano playing adds some great texture to this song. There's also some standard blues in the mix, such as the very unique take on Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues" which stands as one of my favorite moments on the album - sure the lyrics may be pretty different, but it's got an attitude and energy that does the song right. Other moments like the closer "Whiskey Woman" showcase what is probably the best case of the group getting slow with it, and indeed that closer is one of the defining moments on this entire album, along with the side-closer "Yesterday's Numbers," a powerhouse of a finisher for the first half that probably rides the Stones lines the best - maybe this is where people make that comparison. For as consistently well this group can rock, though, some bumps in the road are along the way, with the most apparent one to me being "Doctor Boogie" which, while having a similar energy as the previously mentioned "Evil Hearted Ana," isn't nearly as entertaining to me.

    For a group that keeps it as straightforward as the Flamin' Groovies, I was nonetheless greatly entertained by this album, and it's one that's only grown in estimation since my initial listening. While it's almost certainly not as polished as the Stones albums it's compared to (again, sorry), it can more than stand on its own as a fun collection of songs that rock and bloom from start to finish. The band is galvanized here, and it shows in how much fun these songs are. It's yet another solid rock album that should certainly be looked over by classic rock enthusiasts across every isle as a potential addition to their repertoire.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Teenage Head.