[review 2006: favourites]

What do you do when you’ve been out of the spotlight for a couple of years? In Imperial Teen’s case, you write an essay on how you spent your summer vacation for the class and set it to music. The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band makes up for its poor punctuation with another trademark dose of Imperial Teen sunshine five years after On, after which the band all but disappeared from the face of the earth. The L.A. band’s new album goes some way towards explaining the hiatus; each element of the title points to what each band member has spent the past five years pursuing.

For a while, it looked like On was going to be Imperial Teen’s last splash, and as final albums go it was a pretty outstanding one—everything from the keyboards to the sassy vocals sounded in top form, and On was rife with memorable moments—the band certainly knows how to write an irresistably catchy tune. In a way, you could be forgiven for asking exactly what it is that brought Roddy Bottum and company back to the table—the album itself is the best evidence that everyone’s got their own projects and businesses to pursue, so it’s not like anyone needed the money, the attention, or the touring schedule. The answer, then, appears to be a variation of part-time L.A. band syndrome: Imperial Teen has become less of an ongoing concern, perhaps, and more of a side outlet for everyone when they’re not wrapped up in running a hair salon or scoring television shows.

Which goes a long way towards explaining the more relaxed vibe on The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band. It takes a while to suss out exactly why the new album doesn’t sound quite like On, but I think it all comes down to polish. Songs like “Ivanka,” “Sugar” and “Teacher’s Pet” are slicker and tighter than anything on The Hair, and the new album is decidedly lacking in crazy electronic antics. This time out the recordings are stripped down to the basics, with guitars and drums dominating and keyboards playing a small supporting role (”Sweet Potato” being a notable exception). It sounds like the album could’ve been recorded on a sunny weekend. But it turns out Imperial Teen can be just as good with their more frenetic tendencies clipped and their keyboards shelved; as a straightforward indie pop album, The Hair is really good, if not necessarily anything particularly new or original.

That lack of novelty is originally what did the album in for me; even the prospect of buying another Imperial Teen album seemed a bit weird, like buying a piece of indie nostalgia. But over time, the album grows on you—the band hasn’t lost its songwriting touch, and when the band kicks it into overdrive like on “Sweet Potato” and “21st Century,” suddenly it’s like they never left the scene at all. It’s not quite the production On was, but if that album was Saturday night at the clubs, this is a Sunday afternoon barbecue with a bunch of friends. The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band is a perfectly charming album, and if Imperial Teen are willing to keep us up to date on their latest trials and tribulations, I’ll keep listening.