Reality Check

Warning: completely inappropriate and explicit humor ahead! While it’s pretty funny that France’s the Teenagers — formed on a whim and a chuckle — have become favorites of the electro-pop set, you can’t ignore that they whip up great beats to serve alongside scrambled, adolescent emotions. Their attention-getting singles (included here), “Homecoming,” “F*** Nicole,” and “Starlet Johansson,” are spot-on totems to confused and frustrated young lust, and they don’t mince words. The synths crackle and soar, the guitars crack like whips, and vocalist Quentin Delafon pours on the faux sincerity or the droll cool as needed. Their sound is both lush and austere, hugely dance-worthy, and somewhat repetitious. From the seduction (“French Kiss”) to the break-up (“End of the Road”), the Teenagers capture the in-between (“III” — “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know anything at all!”) as well as any Gus Van Sant movie. Think of Reality Check as the soundtrack to modern adolescence, with a caustic, dark sting in place of the cotton candy, John Hughes fluff of the ‘80s. The times, they are a changin’.