IMPERIAL TEEN | Feel The Sound | 5 Years

On January 31st 2012 Imperial Teen released their fifth album, Feel The Sound.

Merge Records

The fifth album by Imperial Teen, Feel the Sound, succeeds completely at its goal, plainly stated in the collection’s title. Like the sharpest pop music, Feel the Sound gets you to keep coming back for more, but unlike so much music today, it rewards you for doing so, giving you the experience of a fulfilled and yet still yearning, lively potential, one that will be further realized when the songs are performed live. From the exhilarating, propulsive “Runaway,” which features the entire band on lead vocals (how many other groups can make that claim?), to the expansive final statement of “Overtaken,” Roddy Bottum, Lynn Perko Truell, Will Schwartz, and Jone Stebbins feel the sound themselves and, in turn, make the listener feel it in ways immediate and pleasurable but also lasting and haunting. 

ELO-like symphonic pop has become a touchstone for everyone from Justice to Cut Copy in recent years, but Feel the Sound makes it manifest through live instrumentation that possesses a Krautrock level of intuitive synchronicity and a desert island jukebox’s sense of fun. So many bands lose momentum and focus over time, but a little past its sweet sixteenth year of existence, Imperial Teen somehow grows both younger and wiser, connecting four characterful lives through creative friendship and deep trust, and forging a communal power that continues to grow stronger. Feel the sound of a one-of-a-kind group that’s never sounded more like itself.

No Matter What You Say  Directed by Guy Franklin and John Gavin. Starring Emily Browning.

Reviews.

'Imperial Teen know what they like, are content to do it well, and there's still more pleasure in that than next-big-thing culture often lets on' - Pitchfork

'The band always has radiated an adorable eagerness, which infused even their cattiest barbs with sly wit packaged in chewy pop goodness.' - Spin.com

'The wealth of hook-heavy pop wonders alone makes Feel the Sound a fantastic record, but the sure-footed air of confidence and self-assurance that carries the record is what truly cements Imperial Teen as more of an institution than a band.' - Allmusic

'Feel the Sound welcomes listeners back into the sunny world of Imperial Teen that they didn’t even realize they were missing.' - Consequence Of Sound

The Album In Their Words

Will

“Honestly, it was almost recorded like a chain letter record,” Schwartz told Wired. “We’d record something, leave it for a few months, then forget what we’ve done so we could come back to it kind of fresh to finish the task. We mapped it out to start but then would experiment with vocals, instruments, keyboard sounds, whatever we felt a song called for. When it started coming together during the mixing, it had a pretty full sound. A big sound. I like how it came out.” - Wired

Roddy

"The tone is a real personal thing. It’s where we are together. Right now, it’s a pretty good place. It’s a struggle to get the four of us together, because our geographics are so separate and apart, but to come together to do what we do is really a rewarding and uplifting place to be. We just do it because we love it. To have that as a goal and see that goal fulfilled is a really empowering place to be. In that way, it’s really up. It can only be up... we’re certainly not tortured." - Edge Media

"We're all together in a room and goofing around and communicating amongst the four of us. It's been a stretch this last go-round because everyone is in a different city. It all starts in different ways." - Chicago Pride

"We have a lot of respect for each other and we really make each other laugh.  we have a short hand language that we resort to that gets a lot of mileage.  we’re a family that doesn’t really tire of each other.  it’s still so much fun.  we only do it for that joy of it.  we certainly don’t make money doing what we do." - Aftertheshow