The Rot That Grows Inside My Chest

Whiplashing contrast drives the debut album from Adelaide duo Teenage Joans. Anyone expecting simply the emo-friendly pop-punk from their 2021 debut EP Taste of Me will be taken aback by the many shifts on display here—often during a single song. Opener “Hospital Bed” lingers around a long spell of woozy Auto-Tune before singer/guitarist Cahli Blakers and drummer/singer Tahlia Borg launch into more anthemic territory midway through, while “moneymoneymoney” lurches from acoustic confessional to arena screamer. Reuniting with EP producer Jarred Nettle, the duo adds horns to the latter and strings to “Ruby Doomsday” while still making room for such cheeky fizziness as “My Dentist Hates Me!!!”. Teenage Joans formed as actual teens in 2018 and that youthful perspective deeply informs such tracks as “Candy Apple”, which recounts the tortured fallout of an addictive romance at age 19. Plunging headfirst into the darker themes promised by that album title, The Rot That Grows Inside My Chest uses its leftfield structural and production twists to magnify the emotional rawness of songs that are all about learning to live with the sharpest of pain.