Teenage Fanclub: Grand Prix : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's easy to knock this Scottish quartet's love for chiming guitars, dense retro-'60s chord changes and Beach Boysish harmonies. Throughout their last three albums, they've been the fuzzy pranksters of punk-pop, as prone to making musical blunders as they are to making inspired music. But "Grand Prix" signals a huge leap of melodic faith for Teenage Fanclub: They've toned down their sloppier edginess for 13 simply crafted, gorgeous songs of testosterone angst and infatuation. Which is not to say that the band's gone soft -- there's still plenty of six-string buzz and snarl in songs like "Mellow Doubt," "About You" and "Going Places." Granted, old fans might be astonished (and dismayed) by the seeming Paul Westerberg-meets-the-Mamas-and-Papas transformatio