Ramonescore Radio Records, 30 August 2021
The Cheap Pops pop in lots of right places.
Germany’s The Cheap Pops are right in my wheelhouse. Their modus operandi, buzzing pop punk with lots of Ramones sounds and tattoo-my-brain lead guitar, is the kind of stuff I live for. And Winless Summer, the splendid Ramonescore Radio debut from the band, hits all the right notes and sounds good doing it.
First off, I want to mention the actual recording quality. Winless Summer sounds great. It’s got a wonderfully full sound – a good mix of rawness and vibrancy – and it pretty well explodes from my speakers. The guitars are sharpened just the right amount, slashing melodically into my brain and leaving scars. The bass snuggles in at a good level, with the melodic pops coming out but not overwhelming. And the drums are just the right mix of bounce and pound…a sort of driving force that propels everything forward throughout while also offering an endearing bounce and pop that can become its own sort of hook at times. I like this.
The really good news is that the sound is not the only offering on Winless Summer. The songs are some fantastic (and juvenile fun) stuff. Songs like “I Don’t Care”, “Slobs”, “Shut Up”, and “Life Sucks” reek of teenage angst behind great melodic hooks. “Care” wraps it all in a high energy dash as the band rants about the failings of professional wrestling. And “Slobs” and “Shut Up” slow things down to a mid-tempo, with “Slobs” coming off as a sort of sing-song mission statement about slackerdom and “Shut Up” sending it’s kiss-off message through a hooky drum-rolled stop-and-go filter, each landing just right. Another, “Life Sucks”, races by in something like 28 seconds and packs a wallop with a bunch of hooks stuffed into the short run-time. They also have some fun with sacred cows. “Star Wars” loads up melody into the vocal hooks while decrying Jar Jar Binks and Star Wars fans, and the lead guitar gets my attention and I love it. “Beavis and Butthead” gets by on outta-this-world drums and cool melodic lead guitar and the chorus is catchy as shit as it repeats the title over and over (and with some nice lead guitar layered overtop during the coda). Then we have “Fat Wreck”. Rather than a reverential tribute, the song serves as a call-out at what The Cheap Pops sees Fat Wreck as becoming. And it again has some persistent brainwashing lead guitar that sounds ripped from a classic Screeching Weasel song and a vocal hook that lasts for days. Even “Intro” has tons of charm, blasting away at an envious pace and cutting into my head with buzzsaw guitars, hooky leads, and pulverizing drums. Winless Summer is just a bunch of good songs.
Winless Summer is a win this summer (clever, eh?). The Cheap Pops know what they’re doing and have a wonderful collection of songs here. I’ve been listening to this for a month now and I still find new things to like regularly. And my favorite song has changed at least three or four times since my first run through. That’s a good sign.
Favorite song: “I Don’t Care”
Favorite moment: the pure enthusiasm exuded on “Intro” hooked me and set the tone from jump
Favorite whatever else: I love the mission statement line “we only play three chords, cos we don’t know more”
ryan is a reviewer and news editor for TGEFM. He’s very secretive, he might be an alien.
