Southern garage rockers The Dexateens have announced their reformation and release of their lost album, Teenage Hallelujah, out October 7 on Cornelius Chapel Records. In celebration of the announcement, the band shared the title track off the upcoming record below…
After a half-decade hiatus, cult-favorite Alabama rock & roll collective The Dexateens are back in action, on the road again, and finally set to release their classic lineup’s long-shelved swan song Teenage Hallelujah (out Oct. 7 from Cornelius Chapel Records). The decidedly blue-collar Dexateens are proudly comprised of a cabinet maker, a carpenter, multiple restaurant and bar employees, and one full-time member of Drive-By Truckers. They are validated working-class renaissance men, well-versed in culture, art, music and life, and they deliver their anthemic rock & roll with an insatiable appetite for fuzzed-out, high-decibel crunch and sweaty soul, all anchored in a constant dialogue with Southern Culture that spawned them, in all its flawed glory.Recorded back in 2011 (and marking the end of Lee Bains’ tenure on guitar), Teenage Hallelujah captures the thrilling if tragic sound of a band imploding in the midst of an inspired streak of greatness, leaving in its wake a hail of smoke & sparks glowing across the night sky like an Independence Day fireworks finale. Before the sessions wrapped Bains would be long gone, and the rest of the band would call it quits, too. Luckily, the moment was laid to wax, The Dexateens’ signature triple-guitar attack on full display. Recorded mostly in singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Elliott McPherson’s barn with producer/engineer Bronson Tew (Seratones, Jimbo Mathus, Water Liars), Teenage Hallelujah finds the Tuscaloosa quintet proudly—often simultaneously—flying the flags of its deepest influences: classic country, Southern rock and blistering garage punk.
Finally reunited, with longtime buddy Taylor Hollingsworth (Dead Fingers, Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band) now on guitar, The Dexateens are assaulting stages like a howling SR-71 Blackbird set to the soundtrack of dueling stereos pumping The Quadrajets and Waylon Jennings in ornate cacophony. Brad Armstrong holds court stage right on his trademark telecasters, bringing as much noise as subtle nuance in one heavily bearded attack. Brian Gosdin rocks steady behind the kit with his impervious back beat, and dead-on DeeDee Ramone style ‘1-2-3-4’ count offs. And Matt Patton (who now pulls double duty with Drive-By Truckers) rains down the bass thunder while frontman McPherson steers the ship on lead vocals and guitar. Everyone plays lead at one point or another—sometimes all at once in ecstatic abandon. The Dexateens are exactly what rock & roll has been missing since… well, since they’ve been gone. And now they’re back to stake their claim on the legacy that’s rightfully theirs.
