TEEN: Masters of the Side-Eye

In an era dominated by Lana Del Rey and her plasticine ilk, it’s always exciting to find female musicians for whom image doesn’t overshadow substance. Brooklyn’s TEEN is just such a band, and while its debut album, In Limbo, isn’t perfect, it’s a promising start for a group that seems refreshingly committed to making its musical vision happen on its own terms.

Maybe it’s the fact that three of the four bandmembers are sisters that makes them seem so comfortable in their own skins. Or maybe it’s that band leader Teeny Lieberson knew what she wanted well enough to walk away from an objectively sweet gig as keyboardist for Here We Go Magic (which is now working with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich) to pursue her own sound.

Whatever the reason, Lieberson—along with sisters Lizzie and Katherine and bassist Jane Herships—has crafted a debut album full of fuzzy psych-pop that simmers with confidence and toys with the current nostalgia-pop vogue without feeling derivative or trend-trapped.

Drawing on Can and the Velvet Underground with a touch of folk balladry, TEEN makes cloudy, lo-fi, meandering music about loss and heartbreak.

“I got dumped, someone close to me was sick, I was confused about where I wanted to be… The record really explores all of those different situations that were going on at the time,” Lieberson recently told music blog Line of Best Fit. But the album's mood is lifted by the Lieberson sisters’ chirping harmonies on tracks like the casually ebullient “Better.”

There’s something exciting about TEEN’s music that’s hard to put a finger on but fueled both by Lieberson’s earnestness and the obvious confidence shared by the women in the band. It’s a simple and effective combination but also a too-rare one, these days.