Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Cheap Trick
Label: Big Machine Records
Released: 2016
Running time: 39:41
Rating: 4/5
»Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello« is, believe it or not, the seventeenth studio album from the indestructible, forever-naughty American rock’n’roll rascals who don’t know the meaning of obedience, Cheap Trick. The years slip quietly by, and the band has slowed down along the way too. That’s just how it goes. Nothing new, totally natural. That’s also why the band’s new studio albums keep arriving at longer and longer intervals. It took Cheap Trick seven years to get a new one out of the studio. The band still runs with its official lineup today, including original member Bun E. Carlos, even though the guy hasn’t recorded or played live with them since 2010. Weird status, but lately the rock’n’roll world is more and more weighed down by the most unexpected twists and turns – I only need to think of the current AC/DC farce. Anyway, for the sixth year running, the spot of the »resting« Bun has been filled by Dexx Nielsen, who drummed the whole new Cheap Trick album too.
With the new album, Cheap Trick deliver yet another first-rate studio document, armed to the teeth with all the trademarks of this band. It’s an authentic take on rock’n’roll that combines, in an unbelievably successful and unique way, the high musicality of role models like The Beatles and Queen with the debauched, hooligan magic of The Who. The formula is soaked in a generous dose of sparkling, lucid mockery and nonstop humoresques that weigh down the lyrics, which the one-of-a-kind vocalist Robin Zander, as always, brings to life with unbelievable conviction through his interpretation. The lyrical themes confirm that the band (at least in their heads) is not aging one bit and that their minds are forever buzzing with the potent »stupidity« of 20-year-old stallions.
So? Here’s that old, familiar, in-your-face rock bristle and full-blooded, high-voltage energy of Rick Nielsen’s simple but consistently, unbelievably seductive guitar phrases, the chameleon voice of »a thousand faces« from the exceptional Robin Zander, one of the most expressive and powerful singers in the story of rock’n’roll, and the venomously potent framework of a tightly defined rhythm section that rips and slices through the concrete riff wall of Nielsen’s guitars. The band has put together 12 superb compositions where, as mentioned, the high musical sensibility that Cheap Trick have always implemented so effectively in their arrangements is perfectly complemented by a demonstration of arrogantly naughty, adrenaline-shot, free-wheeling rock’n’roll energy.
The album is mostly packed with potent rock »crunchers«, but here and there it’s reined in by calmer moments where Zander instantly transforms into a broken-hearted romantic (Sing My Blues Away, and the album’s first single, When I Wake Up Tomorrow). The melancholic single, a masterfully arranged and even mildly dark When I Wake Up Tomorrow, is a total surprise in its content, since not a single other track on the rest of the album resembles it. That’s why the song, as the first single, could (wrongly) have hinted at a completely different studio story. But that didn’t happen. High-octane rock’n’roll with the band’s recognizable traits once again rides on defiantly, and in its unbridled, potent rock bursts it doesn’t stop for even a fraction of a second.
The album also features an interesting cover of The In Crowd. It’s a tune written in 1964 by Billy Page, and first performed on this planet by Dobie Gray, who recorded this original, Motown-salted song for his album »In Crowders That Go Go«. Cheap Trick rearranged it literally »their own way«. In their hands you’d think they were the authors, so effectively did they tailor it to the authentic character of their rock’n’roll.
The production is hellishly alive. The old school of seasoned team members simply can’t and won’t deny itself. Not in ideas, not in production. They know exactly which moves to pull to make rock’n’roll work optimally in their musical craft. »Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello« is a full-blooded, bristling rock’n’roll product, written from head to toe in honor of the great charisma of the band’s one-of-a-kind musical record, and you’ll find yourself rolling unstoppably through many consecutive spins of it in your CD players. An album that keeps youthful wildness alive well into the band’s later years. Recorded with such fire you’d think it was still 1977 for Cheap Trick.
Lineup
Robin Zander – vocals, backing vocals, guitar on track no. 4
Rick Nielsen – guitar, backing vocals
Tom Petersson – bass guitar, backing vocals
Daxx Nielsen – drums, backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Wayne Kramer – guitar on track no. 4
Tim Lauer – keyboards
Zac Rae – keyboards
Bennett Salvay – keyboards
Johnny Keach – backing vocals
Chris Deaton – backing vocals
Julian Raymond – backing vocals
Production
Cheap Trick
Track list
1. Heart on the Line
2. No Direction Home
3. When I Wake Up Tomorrow
4. Do You Believe Me?
5. Blood Red Lips
6. Sing My Blues Away
7. Roll Me
8. The In Crowd
9. Long Time No See Ya
10. The Sun Never Sets
11. All Strung Out
