Washed Up-Cheap Trick Album Review:

 

Cheap Trick is back with their twenty-first album “All Washed Up” their first in four years. It is a reference to the band's 1980 album All Shook Up. I think the public gets the name of the album/track title “All Washed Up” is a play on their thinking they are and shouldn’t be making music, maybe they are right. So the first three tracks, “All Washed Up, “All Wrong Long Gone” and “The Riff that won’t quit” all rock out but aren’t great as some mention sexual things, or their life/time itself and the last one mentioned, you cannot hear the lyrics. While the last track is an odd acoustic jam that doesn’t seem to fit their style as it is lighter, even groovy just an odd name “Wham Bam Bang”. The other upbeat catchy song that is fun to listen to is “Dancing with the Band” , which seems very playful in the lyrics.

The middle tracks are where it starts to show they still have the ability to be songwriters as it is not a question that they cannot rock or play their instruments still.  One of the better tracks is “Bet it all”, it has a great sound to the beat/music and the singing is great especially with some of the harmonizing. While the next two also rock out well in “Best Thing” and “Twelve Gates”. The first is definitely a love song and the other sounds like they’re being introspective.  There are two other tracks that deal with love. In “Love Gone” it talks about what happens after a love has ended and the other “A long way to Worchester” rocks out but it is about some mysterious love they have but the lyrics are a little bit odd. The final track left is “Bad Blood”, it might be about a bad romantic relationship or friendship. It is super catchy but I can really hear the spunk in the way it is being sung like they really feel this track.

In the end Cheap Trick is probably not washed up hence the album/track name or cover art of washing machines that look like guitar amps. They didn’t need to come out with a new album to prove it but they did anyway and it is not bad, it is actually pretty good especially tracks 4-11. Lead singer Robin Zander still sounds great and so do the musicians Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson, which means they are not washed up yet.