Saturday, July 23, 2016

Teenage Filmstars - Star (1992)


Severely under-appreciated UK shoegaze. For reasons that escape me, everyone -- critics and fans alike, including the dude who first played them for me -- is intent on calling Teenage Filmstars "psych rock" or "space rock" or something like that, despite the fact that Star, their first album, is as shoegaze-y as they come. It's probably one of the all-time great shoegaze records, in fact.

I don't know what you call a band defined by lush, distorted walls of guitar and far-away, angelic, reverb-saturated vocals, all in service of gorgeous sensory overload and (possibly opium-enhanced) euphoria, but I call it motherfucking shoegaze. If I were to curate a series of compilations titled Now That's What I Call Shoegaze, I'd put Teenage Filmstars on the first goddamn volume. Nary a shoe escapes Teenage Film Stars' gaze.

SHOE. GAZE.

Track listing:
1. Kiss Me
2. Loving
3. Inner Space
4. Apple
5. Flashes
6. Kaelidoscope
7. Vibrations
8. Soulful
9. Hallucinations
10. Moon

What's it going to be then, eh?

If you like this shoegaze record, you'll probably like these other shoegaze records:
Majesty Crush -
Love 15 (1993)
Astrobrite -
Pinkshinyultrablast (2005)

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the post, will check.
    rateyourmusic says it's shoegaze, they're on your side.
    On a different note, I sent you an email @ invisibleartery, is it an email you use?

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  2. never heard of this one, but looking into the band members I know of them.....and its on Creation so it should be good. downloading for a listen :)

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  3. Thanks for introducing me to this album... preach, man. Absolutely a shoegaze masterpiece. "Kiss Me" - what an incredible lead-off track!

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  4. Just found out that Ed Ball from the TV Personalities plays in this band, so I decided to check it out but... Dead link!
    Re-up maybe?
    Gracias!!

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