Future Teens, a bummer-pop band from Boston, Massachusetts, just dropped their newest album titled Still Life.

The band’s fourth album premiered on May 8 with Take This To Heart Records. With a 35-minute run time, Still Life exemplifies both similarities to their previous discography, as well as a newly settled sound, focusing on drum-driven songs laced with guitar riffs and synths. The record also emphasizes how the group continues to cover the hard things: the deeper parts of our emotional brain and mental health, and how we see our lives both passively and actively. 

The album opens with “Half Loser,” a song that does a great job of showing Future Teens’ ability to lyrically paint a picture, from a story that they personally experienced. It also does a great job at expressing feelings that may feel relatable to some. Throughout the song, singer Daniel Radin paints both a personal, anecdotal story of choking on food after a show at a bad venue, while also explaining what his definition of a “loser” is. This definition appears as a feeling of not performing to your own or societal standards, and also being “too in your feelings” (“Who needs help / When you can compartmentalize?”). “Half Loser” has an easy “bop your head” beat, allowing you the space to find a connection to this definition of being a “loser.” 

“Half Loser” leads into the energized drum-heavy single, “Unmade Bed.” Singer Amy Hoffman uses the drums as the backing track, telling the story of finding your way out, rather than letting life and emotions passively happen or sit stale in the air (“Guilt’s a hardwood floor / I’m the dog who’s slipping on it / Making friends with the splinters in my feet”). “Unmade Bed” tells of connecting to these parts of yourself and your life, rather than trying to coast through and not address them.

Another single from the album is “Double Down.” This song has a similar “easy beat” to “Half Loser,” allowing you to bop your head along to a song about internalizing insults and general negativity that you face, but doubling down on your identity and who you want to be (“Double down the way I always have a smile like nothing’s wrong / While I calculate when I last saw my friend’s moms / Do they know I cut my hair? / I’m someone’s son now”). “Double Down” is great lyrically, with lines like, “I turned into every insult I used to eat for lunch / but I slept beside nearly half those guys / so tell me who’s the gay one?” Each line tells the story of growing up and being insulted, but choosing to use those negative moments to create your authentic self. 

Still Life then concludes with the album’s title track. The song does a great job tying up the album, while also finalizing the tone of the work.

“Still Life” tells the story of seeing your life as a still life picture, but also recognizing that life is still happening both within and around you. There’s some word play in this song, to detail how it is to go through the motions of life, with lyrics like, “I take out the recycling / Stare at the full sink crime / Set the table with the contents of my coat / Like a still life” and “Dumb or drunk or knee-pained cracked sidewalks towards the storm drain / It taunts me with the promise and the threat that there’s still life.” Life can feel false, like you’re in a movie or a picture, but there’s a life still happening around you, which is both hopeful and horrifying. “Still Life” is a slower end to the album, but includes heavier guitar riffs and a synthesizer that carries a beat towards the middle/end of the song, taking the album home.

The album ultimately tells stories of reflection, identity, and exploring relationships with our bigger and deeper feelings. And as a record, Still Life fits with Future Teens’ past sound in both topics and musicality, while also showing growth in vulnerability and instrumental composition. 

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Image taken from futureteensofamerica.com