by Conor Lochrie (@conornoconnor)
How should you celebrate joining a new label? By releasing a B-side collection of course. After signing with Alcopop! Records (Art Brut, Bo Ningen), LA indie rock band Cheekface released Emphatically Mo’, the B-side to their excellent album from earlier this year, Emphatically No. (see what they did there?).
The four songs come from the album writing sessions, culled when the band wanted to create a good flow for the full-length. There might not be anything as mesmerizing as ‘“Listen to Your Heart.” “No.”’ but that’s not to say there’s no charm to be found in the B-sides; charm is something that comes to Cheekface ludicrously effortlessly.
The trio - lead vocalist Greg Katz, bassist Amanda Tannen, and drummer Mark Edwards - are one of the tightest ensembles working today; a Cheekface song is unmistakably a Cheekface song. The percussion is playful and bright, the drumming propelling and steering. If comparisons are to be made, they recall the chirpier side of Pavement, while Katz’s vocal flow is similar to folk punk icon Jeffrey Lewis.
These songs are possessed of their usual self-effacing self-awareness, again dissecting the mundane ridiculousness of modern life. They wonderfully capture the alienation of being constantly bombarded by so many brands under late capitalism; references to “Sky Mall,” “Sharper Image,” and “Brookstone” are lost on this Melbourne-based writer but I can only assume they’re ubiquitous stores in the U.S., readily made fun of for this fact.
The wit of the writing is often astonishing. “I’ve been coming out of my grave / And I’ve been doing just fine” in ‘Ted Talk City’ must be a sly nod to the inescapable Killers hit ‘Mr. Brightside’. “You were invited to my birthday, then you called out sick with dandruff / (Man we knew you were unreliable, but now we know you are a flake too)” in ‘Friend Mountain’ could be a throwaway line from an episode of 30 Rock.
The Ringer recently wrote a noteworthy essay on ‘The Eternal Cool of Talk Singing’, emphasizing the recent revival of British and Irish post-punk (Squid, Dry Cleaning, Fontaines D.C., Sinead O’Brien) which more often than not features what the Germans call ‘Sprechgesang’. Cheekface applauding gets a mention in the essay too, and they really are the more witty and silly U.S. cousin of the current talk-speak revival. They similarly tap into the anxieties of modern life but in a far more playful way; Cheekface make fun music for less-than-fun times.
Every generation needs their Friends or Seinfeld, an updated iteration on universal themes: a George or a Chandler to look at the folly and chaos of dating and relationships. Similarly, every generation needs a Stephen Malkmus or a Jonathan Richman, a passionate and playful wordsmith to really cut into the absurdity of the U.S. in their time. Cheekface, with the cheery and clever Katz leading them, can be this for late millennials. They’re well on their way to being a cult band, and this B-sides collection has really stirred up hope for their next full-length album.