Teddy's Hit

After the lyrical reception of a debut album, it is tempting to continue on the same path and try to do it all over again. Never change a winning team, as the saying goes. It takes courage to decide to do things differently and let go of that formula for success. Yet Teddy's Hit does exactly that with their new album 'Scratch'.

On their first album, the trio produced a sound that was in the vein of slick acts like Fontaines DC and Shame, but for their ever-difficult second album, the band decided to try something different.

"We had the idea to try to make a different sound, more danceable. We stopped working from pop song skeletons, but more from a groove or vibe. That was a different way of working and thinking and that was often very refreshing for us," says drummer Kick Kluiving.

This new way of working resulted in a sound that leans more on an organic, spontaneous groove, from which new elements are gradually added and a driving, stirring whole is created. The band recorded all the music themselves and also signed for the mix.

Despite the new, danceable sound, there is a lot of suffering hidden in the new music. “A lot of songs are about the pain that is felt when ending a relationship. About the frustration of how long something like that can last, about the uncertainty of whether you will ever find something like that again, and how you deal with that,” says Kluiving about the themes on 'Scratch'. With that, the band dares to put its finger on the sore spot and gives the lyrical depth to the krauty beats.

The music on 'Scratch' may have sprouted from a different seed, but it is still unmistakably the work of the Amsterdam trio. The Netherlands can prepare to dance away its misery.