Teenage Bottlerocket - Sick Sesh! (Vinyl)

Recorded in November 2020 at the Blasting Room (the band's eighth straight full-length with producer Andrew Berlin), Sick Sesh! Is a little bit rougher around the edges than the last few Teenage Bottlerocket albums, from the haunting "Statistic" to the panic-inducing "Strung Out On Stress" to the buzzsaw lead of "Semi Truck." While the bulk of Sick Sesh! #was written in January 2020 (with "Statistic" actually co-written between Carlisle and his son Milo), the COVID pandemic allowed for the band to take a little extra time for fine-tuning, and the resulting tracks are some of the most stylistically diverse on the record. First up, there's the Templeman-penned "Strung Out On Stress," the fastest, angriest track on Sick Sesh!, all about losing your mind during the pandemic. On the flip side, there's the mid-tempo, melodic track "The Squirrel," written by bassist Miguel Chen and sung by Templeman, that's literally about a cute little rodent.