The Latest' from Cheap Trick the best of its recent releases
Cheap Trick, "The Latest" ¿¿¿ (out of 4)
In September, Cheap Trick will perform the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album backed by an orchestra during a string of
shows in Las Vegas.
If that sounds absurd, guess again; the Rockford, Ill., quartet at its best is a heavier, harder-hitting Midwestern Fab Four: Robin Zander's a vocalist
as versatile as Paul McCartney, John Lennon
and George Harrison rolled into one, Bun E. Carlos is a thundering update of Ringo Starr,
Tom Petersson is an ultra-melodic guitarist masquerading as a bassist in the McCartney mold, and Rick Nielsen is a strafe-and-stun guitarist who suggests
what the Beatles might've sounded like with a six-string terrorist such as Jeff Beck or Pete
Townshend in their lineup.
That's high praise, but when Cheap Trick is good, it is very, very good, a quartet that has essentially remained intact since its early '70s
inception. The problem is it's maddeningly inconsistent on record. It's possible to write off the middle section of the band's career as an inept
attempt to keep up with the MTV times by welcoming in outside songwriters and heavy-handed producers that diluted its mix of wicked wit and metallic pop.
But as independent artists, beginning with an unjustly overlooked 1997 self-titled release, the foursome has reclaimed its sound and
legacy with a series of fine releases. "The Latest" (Cheap Trick Unlimited) is the best of that recent bunch, with producer Julian Raymond adding
just a spritz of orchestration to a series of songs that balance the ornate and the violent, a pop album equally audacious and inviting. The band shows its
range from the outset, with Zander's glorious vocal intro, a ripping cover of Slade's glam-rock gem "When the Lights Are Out," an opulent
psychedelic pop ballad ("Miss Tomorrow") and then the fist-in-face "Sick Man of Europe," with Petersson's predatory bass leading the
way.
The rest isn't quite so riveting. The closing ballad, "Smile," smacks of the band's wayward '80s, and some of the rockers are a bit
bar-band rote. But it's great to hear Carlos' cymbal work drive "Alive" in between bursts of Nielsen guitar, and "Times of Our
Lives" is one of those kaleidoscope arrangements that -- like Cheap Trick itself -- just keeps spinning out new colors.
