Teenage Dads Majordomo

Teenage Dads typically sling feel-good guitar pop that’s all too bright and breezy, an approach that’s won them fans around the world as well as the 2023 ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. The Mornington Peninsula quartet continues that reliability on Majordomo, while also roughing up their sound in novel ways. Tunes like “Boyfriend” and “Boarding Pass” echo classic Phoenix in the best way, while “Speedracer” broadcasts romantic sincerity with the festival-ready chorus “You’re my, you’re my speedracer.” But singer, guitarist and keyboardist Jordan Finlay comes off bratty and insouciant on “Spiders”, mingling nursery rhyme lyrics with spacey synth flourishes and a palpable psych edge. He adopts a faux macho air on “The Commander” to underscore the album’s themes of taking control and seizing the day, before encouraging boisterous play-acting on the quirky closer “A Day in the Life of a No Good Pirate”. Especially punchy is “Weaponz”, which channels the band’s long-time fondness for The Strokes into a darker, more propulsive attack. As with Teenage Dads’ past work, these songs are instantly catchy and yet stick around for quite a while, offering nuanced dimensions that might not reveal themselves on the first pass.