The Teenagers

The Teenagers are three twentysomethings from Paris, and wouldn’t you just know it? Everything about ‘Homecoming’ suggests an adolescence spent listening to Patti Smith, an obsession with the soporific cool of Sofia Coppola, and a 10-year diet of Gauloises and vin rouge. Not that anything here is likely to get lost in translation. Like an episode of One Tree Hill, as scripted by John Waters and sponsored by crystal meth and the morning-after pill, this tells the unlikely pop story of getting frisky with your auntie’s virginial step-daughter on a trip to the States. “She’s a cheerleader, she’s a virgin and she’s really tanned/I noticed when she got out of the car she was really fuckable/On day two I fucked her, it was wild, she’s such a slut”, drools lead singer Quentin Delafon before a Valley girl voice supplies the female perspective: “OK, listen girls, I met the hottest guy ever/And he had the cutest British accent ever/Oh my God I think I’m in love!” Men’s needs, women’s needs, whatever, ‘Homecoming’ manages to have both an ache in its heart and a bulge in its jeans. Across this sexy mess, synths which sound like Air on Viagra swoop and divebomb like fingers in search of a bra-clip as the chorus sets out to excavate the trenches for the war of the sexes. Him: “I fucked my American cunt”; her: “I loved my English romance”. A baited, bitter, sex-cynical song that’s clearly never been within a million miles of a Bright Eyes record. Beautifully warped.