Ears Like Golden Bats, by My Teenage Stride (CD on Becalmed)

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“Ears Like Golden Bats” is the third
album by Brooklyn-based My
Teenage Stride and the follow-up to
2005’s “Major Major” (Becalmed
KLECD 103). The heart of My Teenage
Stride is multi-instrumentalist, singer
and songwriter Jedediah Smith. Jed
grew up in Massachusetts and at age
14 started playing guitar, soon adding
bass, piano and drums to the mix. As
soon as he could steal his older
brother’s Tascam 4-track, he was
writing and recording songs as a
one-man band, and by age 18 he had
compiled several boxes of tapes and
had already written 400 songs. Just
over a decade later, he’s written
hundreds more, with no signs of
slowing down. Although previous
alone in the studio, many tracks on
“Ears Like Golden Bats” have been
recorded with the help of a stable
band. The current My Teenage
Stride line-up is Jedediah Smith
(instruments, vocals), Jenny Logan
(bass), Brett Whitmoyer (drums) and
Dakkan Abbe (guitar).
At just under 40 minutes, “Ears”
gathers a collection of captivating
guitar pop gems that manage to
combine fatalism with not-yetdefeated
hope, which seems to be an
inherent quality of many of Smith’s
compositions. The references to Phil
Spector, the Jesus & Mary Chain and
Television Personalities are still
present in well-crafted and immediate
‘That Should Stand For Something’
and ‘Terror Bends’. They’re hookladen
songs that will have you
humming all day long - you might
clap your hands or snap your fingers
too. Titles such as ‘Reversal’ or
‘Genie Of New Jersey’ and ‘To Live
And Die In The Airport Lounge’
expand on those influences,
sounding more atmospheric,
reminiscent of the Chills and the pop
side of John Cale and Brian Eno.
They are catchy in a non-obvious
way, loose recordings that let space
for moods and ideas to bleed through
the album, like the apparent dark tone
that seems to permeate ‘Reception’,
the jangly ‘Heartless & Cruel’ or
‘Depression Kicks’.

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