Twisted Teens' 'The Holy Cross Tigers' Is a Ruthlessly Catchy Masterpiece of Hooks
The Sonic Breakdown
The Holy Cross Tigers is Twisted Teens’ fourth album and their first for Sub Pop, and it does not sound like a band flinching at a bigger room. Thirteen songs, frontman Caspian Hollywell on vocals and guitar, and a tracklist that keeps circling the same imagery — “Blue Rose,” “Blue Flower,” “Every Flower” — without ever repeating a melody.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Unshowy and dependable. The rhythm parts stay out of the way of the vocal, which on a record this hook-dense is the only correct decision.
The Spatial Dynamics: The real colour comes from RJ “The Razor” Santos on pedal steel, which does something genuinely useful here — it fills the upper-mid space that a second rhythm guitar would normally crowd, and it gives even the fastest songs a long horizon behind them. Mel Billiard adds guitar on “Figure It Out” and “Armed With a Vision.”
Standout Performance
Santos, for the reason above. Pedal steel in a rock band is usually either a costume or a crutch; here it’s load-bearing architecture.
Why It’s Certified
⚡ Post-Trash’s Myles Tiessen: “The Teens’ formula, whatever it may be, is essentially a hit-making factory.”
🌈 Our Culture’s Konstantinos Pappis called “When We First Met” “one of the most infectious songs in the band’s catalog,” and closed with “Come morning, anything sounds possible for Twisted Teens.”
🌈 Paste’s Grace Robins-Somerville: “they’re still serving up good times alongside gut punches, playing the Fool and the Hermit at once.”