CHEAP TRICK: In Another World (ROCK): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

By releasing in 2018 the first single of the album that we finally hold in our hands, Cheap Trick probably did not suspect that "In Another World" would see the day three years later. A few months of delay that break the Dantesque rhythm of an album per year observed by the Americans since the "Bang Zoom Crazy...Hello" of 2016 but a detail on the scale of almost forty-five years of career that this twentieth album comes to celebrate as it should.

With each new album of Cheap Trick, one comes to look for exactly the same thing to be tirelessly embarked by its irresistibly melodic rock. The headliner 'The Summer Looks Good On You' is the archetype of the heady nugget that we expect from the Americans. Well launched by Nielsen's guitar, impeccably timed in the chorus and perfectly arranged with its powerful symphonic bridge, it sets the tone of a very worked (the arrangements of the spring and beatlesian 'Quit Waking Me Up', the dark 'Here's Looking At You') and wise (the mid-tempo without surprise 'Another World' and the moving acoustic ballad close to the Fab Four 'So It Goes') part of the record in which Cheap Trick is particularly efficient.

Yet Cheap Trick doesn't just stick to classy power-pop, and after a polite start the veterans rip off the blazer and go wild for the rocking roughs 'Boys & Girls & Rock & Roll' and 'Light Up The Fire' led by Nielsen's catchy riffs and Robin Zander's nervous choruses, the fiery blues 'Final Days' and a dynamic English-style alternative format 'The Party'. In great shape, the Americans even find the audacity of the great days to place less directly identifiable songs like 'Passing Through' with blues intonations and federative choirs or the accelerated version of 'Another World (cover)' which gives it a little color.

This "In Another World" is an excellent surprise, not that one can doubt the capacity of the Americans to still produce good music, but one did not expect to find a group in great condition with such a communicative pleasure. This twentieth album has something special, it is a synthesis of the best of Cheap Trick in the creative freshness of the compositions and the melodic successes. After a "We're All Alright!" that could show some signs of breathlessness, our four endearing rockers bring the arguments that convince that they are not close to retire. - Official website

CHEAP TRICK

IN ANOTHER WORLD

BMG

ROCK