Welcome to the Boolin Tunes Staff Spotlight, a special segment on the site in which we dive deep into a classic or simply personally beloved album to shine a light on releases that we feel deserve a second glance.
Under label pressure, mercurial frontman Sam Ray changed the name of his flagship band from Teen Suicide to American Pleasure Club in 2017. Though he reverted the name in 2020, this era represents the best work of Ray‘s career thus far. Armed with a “proper lineup” for the first time, forgoing the merry-go-round in favor of stability.
2018’s A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This stands as the strongest point in favor of this argument. The album retains the slacker charm built thus far, adding to it a stronger base of songwriting and sampling. At the same time, they leave behind some of the “shock and awe” tactics from early in the band’s career.
Wrought with nostalgia and a near-pleading grace, the album opens with quiet desperation:
‘Art is dead’ read the personal ad
Keep getting stoned & you’ll never be sad
Looking for coke in a state of bliss
This is heaven & I’d die for it
The themes of self-destruction, urgency, and decaying youth remain in full force. However, Ray appears in the thick of his “New Sincerity”, with less emphasis on his typical dramatic irony. The clouded whirlwind that obscured much of Teen Suicide‘s early work appears to have cleared, at least for the moment.
Let’s move to the desert
Every day, falling in love
Picture the road
Like rushing water
And the sand
Like the setting sun
The focus on sincerity naturally begets the discussion of Ray‘s real life experiences. Escapism, both through literal escape and drug usage, rears its head at regular intervals throughout the album. A more complicated portrayal than a Requiem for a Dream-esque downward spiral, the album sifts through these ideas in scrapbook fashion. Strong storytelling provides an objective correlative to these themes.
You mentioned
It’s not what you wanted
And it’s not what you saw for me
Come back to life
Before my telephone rings
“‘Come back to life before my telephone rings’ was going to be the original title of the album at one point,” Ray explained when discussing this track on Genius, “Every time the phone rings you assume that it’s a call to tell you [someone you love] died. This is especially true when you’re estranged from this person, they’re living on the street or at unknown whereabouts, and are at their lowest point.” This line of thinking informs the album on the whole, mourning the currently-living because you know what likely comes next.
Overall, American Pleasure Club‘s inherent sense of melancholy, successfully juxtaposed with often upbeat passages and quick tempos, prevents it from becoming a chore to listen through. Instead, Ray presents a vivid and lively snapshot of a series of memories, fantasies, and fears. This collage represents near-mastery of his craft, and though subsequent work fails to quite match these achievements, they too suggest a stronger sense of artistry that hopefully will continue to inform the rechristened Teen Suicide into the future.
We hope that you join us next Sunday for another retrospective from our team.