Spectreview: Cheekface – Therapy Island

-ELECTRIC INDIGO-

“Here, let me explain how breathing works
You suck in and you continue to live”

Chances are if you’ve spent any time with American underground rock from the last 30 years, you’ll be familiar with Cheekface’s sound. A heady mixture of the Strokes’ sharply dressed guitars, Cake’s quirky funk and Pavement’s slacker aesthetic (with a hint of the Pixies’ absurdism), Therapy Island isn’t attempting a revolution sonically, though it is both highly accessibly and imminently danceable. It’s Greg Katz’s lyrics, delivered with a frank deadpan, that gives the band’s debut album its unique edge. At turns sharply comedic (“I may be too fat to be Spiderman but not to be body-positive Spiderman,” he blurts on the effervescent “S.T.O.P. B.E.L.I.E.V.I.N.G.”) and devastating frank (“The United States of America is in retrograde” on first single “Glendale”), Katz’s words often read like a well-curated Twitter feed, promotions and all, and in spite of their relentlessness they’re worth following even on first listen. Backed by bassist Amanda Tannen (another touch of the Pixies), Katz successfully updates the classic punk trope of dispassionate social observation to 2019, taking American consumer culture to task while also mirroring the exasperation and ennui of any helpless, scatterbrained millennial. He’s sometimes trying too hard to be clever, but for the most part he elevates the LA band’s catchy slacker-rock onto a higher plane, making Therapy Island absolutely worthy of larger attention.

Recommended for when you can’t muster the energy to return from your Wednesday lunch break.