Teenage and Torture

VINYL FORMAT. Teenage and Torture, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers' second full-length, is a collection of ten savage and sultry blues-influenced songs. The album finds Ray eviscerating her subjects (and often spilling her own guts) with the kind of sharp-tongued, smart-assed angst that keeps juvenile detention centers in business. Songs like 'Hookers' and 'Genie's Drugs' aren't dealing with kid-sized issues, but no matter the situation, Ray says, 'I always have that gut reaction the way that teenagers do.' Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers was formed in 2009, and the group released the self-financed album A Fish Hook, An Open Eye. Teenage and Torture both refines and expands upon the arresting qualities of their first release. The result 'isn't as thrown together as the first one,' says Ray. 'The first record was like a series of thoughts, this is one big thought. You'll slip into a different world when you hear this.' Recorded with Black Dirt Studios' Jason Meagher at Seizure's Palace in Gowanus, Brooklyn, the songs on Teenage and Torture are dark, sardonic looks inside Ray's own world and obsessions, augmented by the musical styling of her Happy Hookers Nick Hundley on bass, Andrew Bailey on guitar and John Adamski on drums and percussion, and featuring Greg Lewis on organ, Jonathan Lam on pedal steel and Andrew Hoepfner on vocals and keys. Blood and blisters be damned, on Teenage and Torture, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers have some things to say, and you've got no choice but to pay attention.