Album by Cheekface
Cheekface sounds like a slightly unhinged stepchild of the irreverent alternative music made by bands and artists like They Might Be Giants, Dead Milkmen, Mojo Nixon, and Cake.
It’s pop. It’s punk. It’s indie rock. It’s whatever you call music that sits somewhere along the edges of all three while cracking jokes about how screwed up everything is.
It’s Sorted is funny, ridiculously catchy, and occasionally absurd. But the humor isn’t there to turn the songs into novelty records. There’s real songcraft underneath it: great hooks, incredibly fun bass lines, Greg Katz and Amanda Tannen’s vocals bouncing off each other, and choruses that feel like they should be shouted by considerably more people than have probably heard them.
The humor gives everything a wink and a nod. Cheekface can take on some pretty serious ideas, but the jokes keep the songs from becoming overly earnest or weighed down by their own importance.
“The Fringe” sets the tone as an anthem for weirdness, celebrating life on the outside while poking fun at the idea of being a struggling artist. It’s sincere enough to work as an anthem and self-aware enough to know how ridiculous an anthem for outsiders probably is.
“Popular 2” is ridiculously catchy, with a stomp-along chorus that feels built for a room full of people. Underneath that, there’s something paranoid about the surveillance state we’ve willingly created for ourselves. Porch cameras, drones, neighbors watching neighbors. I picture the narrator almost like a shut-in, peeking through the blinds at mundane suburban life, part voyeur and part self-appointed neighborhood watch.
“Grad School” has a great progression and one of the smoothest choruses on the album. The lyrics pile up mundane details until I start hearing someone moving through everyday life almost automatically. Cheekface can throw so many specific references and non sequiturs into a song that it initially sounds random, but eventually some larger idea starts poking through.
“Life in a Bag” is a showcase for what Cheekface can do. There are jokes, references to Walt Whitman, contradictions, mental illness, work, money, and all the assorted garbage that comes with being a person trying to function in the world. Even the bag starts taking on a darker meaning for me. I picture a body bag. Go to work. Make money. Keep grinding. Put your life in the bag until eventually somebody puts you in one. That’s pretty bleak for a song this much fun.
“Trophy Hunting at the Zoo” is a short, jagged burst of punk that I hear as an attack on wealth and privilege, particularly the people who inherit both and still behave as though they earned their place at the top.
“There Were Changes in the Hardcore Scene” turns toward belonging. I hear something about the strange contradiction of subcultures that celebrate individuality while developing their own rules about what you’re supposed to look like, know, and do before you’re allowed inside. Trying to be authentic can become its own kind of performance.
“Don’t Stop Believing” is weird even by the standards of this album. Borrowing the title of one of the most relentlessly optimistic songs ever recorded, Cheekface gives us something much more subdued and melancholy. Everyone cool will die. Everyone weird will die too. What survives is the destruction caused by market economics. It’s funny because of how matter-of-fact it is, but there’s not much comfort underneath the joke. All these identities and groups we spend our lives separating ourselves into eventually disappear while the systems chewing everybody up keep going.
“Plastic” should be a song every person walking the earth should know. I truly believe anyone who hears this song and doesn’t have the chorus playing in their head long after it ends is a sociopath. It’s bright, upbeat, and immediately catchy while presenting a world that’s increasingly artificial and damaging to the people living in it. Then Cheekface sets up what sounds like it’s going to be the inspirational payoff: “maybe we can make it.” Only for their comic cynicism to come crashing down on the whole thing: “…out of plastic.”
It’s Sorted sounds irreverent, but underneath the humor is some deadly serious stuff, and nothing seems to escape their blast radius. Capitalism, anxiety, identity, work, surveillance, belonging, environmental destruction, and the general absurdity of being alive all become fair game without Cheekface ever sounding like they’re trying too hard to make a point.
Sometimes I laugh first and realize how bleak the joke was about five seconds later. And through all of it, Cheekface never forgets the most important part: these are really good songs. The bass bounces. The hooks stick. Katz and Tannen’s vocals play off each other. The choruses make me want to join in.
Maybe everyone cool will die. Maybe everyone weird will also die.
At least Cheekface gives us something catchy to sing while we coast into oblivion.
I guess this means I’m a Cheekface fan now.
Verdict: Great
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