Teenage Waitress: Upstairs To Finish A Dream
(Blackstar Records)
All Formats Available
Out Now
Teenage Waitress aka Daniel Ash’s long awaited follow up to Your Cuckoo, Upstairs To Finish A Dream is finally here…
With Teenage Waitress the musical landscape changes from track to track…. not my words but those of Mr Ash himself, and it really does. I’ve been fortunate to have had a couple of months to listen to Upstairs To Finish A Dream, That time has really allowed it breathe. I say fortunately as those discovering it on release day, I think, will be listening to it, and then listening to it again trying to take in the amount of variety included.
Beginning with the urgent scuzzy rush of Square One, the riffs of which are juxtaposed with the singers melodic vocals, which are constant through the album. The following Blue Tick Burning is more ‘radio friendly’ which it’s hooky extended refrain of ‘keep burning’…
Musically it’s a mix tape. From the more ‘commercial sounding tracks’ are a couple of, I guess interludes, Let’s Get Drunk and Watch Some Science Fiction (Parts 1 and 2) which force you to take a breather Following on from the first of these is Til Tomorrow the gentle sway of which borders on 70’s Yatch Rock… which slips effortlessly into the more electronic Popcorn.
At the centre piece of the album is the jewel in the crown. Maybe It’s Love is a track Ash has worked on with his producer (and collaborator) Michael Bissett. The first half, Ash’s segment of the track has a driving sub-bass underpinning the vocals which make me think at some point you’re gonna hear the line, “you’re now rocking now-now rockin’ with will.i.am and Britney, bitch”. The second half, the producers piece, then flips it on it’s head, with a more guitar led rock feel, bordering on metal. Whilst nearly 7 mins long, it would work as a standalone single in the same way as Yard Act’s epic The Trench Coat Museum.
Without hardly any time to breath we enter Gilbert O’Sullivan, or possibly Paul McCartney territory on the piano piece, Time Square Kiss… it’s a time to take stock before Best Of Me. Like Maybe It’s Love this is another odyssey, this time over a space of 5 minutes. The um-pah lead track twists and turns over all over the place. I’m not saying Daniel is a man out of time, but if this track had been released in 1973 it would be considered as groundbreaking for the era… As it’s 2025 it may not be groundbreaking, but it highlights how deftly the artist coherently fits together a number of ideas and doesn’t lose the listener along the way.
The second of the interludes allow for another breather before we hit the home straight which begins the build again with Hollywood Honey. It feels like a false ending to the album as reaches its peak but then drops into Stupid And Strange… a relatively short simple number lead by Ash’s vocals and a simple organ.
I actually think this is a soundtrack to a film Daniel Ash is playing over and over in his head, Upstairs To Finish A Dream finishing on the positive upbeat, Disconnect that leaves you feeling like you’ve been on a journey. You’ll not be quite sure where the journey has taken you but you’ll want to go on it again…
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Photos by Matt Wardell. Supplied by Daniel Ash
All words by Iain Key. See his author profile here or find him on Bluesky
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