On It’s Sorted, Cheekface Does What They Do Best, Only Better

Nobody does their thing like Cheekface. Sorry, that’s a little ambiguous. I mean that no other band does Cheekface’s thing like Cheekface does; you can’t go anywhere these days without tripping over another bunch of talk-singers slinging songs about late capitalism and social anxiety, and none of them can match the LA indie rock trio’s sheer winsome They-Might-Be-Giants goofiness. But I also mean that I’m hard pressed to think of another band who does their own thing as reliably as Cheekface does. They’ve already cranked out three LPs packed full of grooves and one-liners, and the last two also had companion EPs featuring B-sides of equivalent quality. That’s how good Cheekface is at the thing Cheekface does.

So when singer/guitarist Greg Katz sprechgesangs “I am continuing to do my thing” on an early chorus from their fourth album, It’s Sorted, you can trust the resolve behind his dogged pep. The same goes for singer/bassist Amanda Tannen chanting “Left, left, right, right” in the background, like a marching cadence, or a set of line dance instructions, or both. Together, they set the tone for It’s Sorted—an album that re-commits to all of Cheekface’s best qualities. They’ve never been about the big conceptual swings, but their last full-length—2022’s Too Much To Ask—had its share of enjoyable detours, like the one where drummer Mark “Echo” Edwards plays his best LCD Soundsystem type beat, or the one where Sidney Gish shows up for an acoustic guest verse, or the one where the trio’s Talking Heads cover band chops come out in a swirling Remain in Light homage.

On It’s Sorted, Cheekface gathers up all of those wandering impulses and channels them back into sounding like Cheekface. On “Popular 2,” they deliver the platonic ideal of a Cheekface song in the form of a brisk report on the Ring doorbell panopticon that is the American suburbs. Katz chirps “Hey buddy, this is private property!” and then proceeds to demonstrate why it really isn’t at all. “If I’m never ever gonna be alone / Here in my community neighborhood home,” he sings, “Then I wanna be popular to watch / In the movie you put on from the camera on your porch.” It’s hilarious, and as catchy as a golden retriever. Note the devious irony cosplaying as total sincerity, and vice versa. Note the way it builds through the song’s handclap intro to its shaker verse to its tambourine chorus. Taste for yourself Cheekface’s salty, sweet and savory everything bagel approach to rhythmic and lyrical devices.

So it goes for almost all of the album’s 10 tracks, but the band also weighs the stakes of continuing to do their thing. It may be a mistake to try to pull any one theme out of such a dense web of lyrical ideas, but among evergreen subjects like panic attacks, pollution and the general absurdity of society, the songs also devote more lines than average to the relationships between work and creativity, and between creativity and community, and between creativity and capital. The album’s lead track, “The Fringe,” sneaks in some cheeky references to musique concrete, avant garde sculpture and ambivalent critics. “There Were Changes In the Hardcore Scene” pokes fun at punk culture, and the ways its oft-touted inclusivity can be shallow or conditional (“If you’ve got plugs and gauges, you are welcome in our spaces!” goes one line, over a cheerful cowbell beat). On “Life in a Bag,” Katz drawls, “Our artsy friends have settled down / we put our feelings in a sock / looks like we got got got got got got got got got got it on lock.” In the perpetual grind to make rent, attrition and burnout among creatives feels inevitable–try not to think about it while you move to the extended, extra-groovy instrumental toward the end of album highlight “Grad School.”

This artistic angst brings us the record’s most plainly earnest track—the jarringly un-groovy, acoustic number “Don’t Stop Believing.” Has Cheekface had a change of heart since writing “S.T.O.P. B.E.L.I.E.V.I.N.G.” for their debut record? Don’t bet on it. “Being unique does not fit neatly into the grid of corporate needs,” Katz sings. “Still, I work like a dog doing a dog’s day’s work / And who could blame me? I live in a society.” It sounds less corny when he says it. You can’t hear him wink, so a triangle ding at the end of the line will have to do. “They say don’t stop believing,” Katz continues, “But it’s just too late for that.” Balladry isn’t this band’s forte, but thankfully ”Don’t Stop Believing” is the only pause—as the album zips from a snappy drum intro to a new wave guitar solo to an endearingly half-rapped half-joke. And anyway, the sentiment here hits hard, especially if you’re currently mourning music publication layoffs (as I suspect you might be, if you’re reading this).

Speaking of timing, it’s also appropriate that It’s Sorted arrives just a few days after Saviors, the refreshingly mid new Green Day album. Cheekface once covered “Walking Contradiction” and, on It’s Sorted, they prove themselves to be exactly the kind of incisive, relevant and tirelessly hooky pop rock band Green Day so desperately wants to be–and maybe still could be, if they weren’t also determined to carry the mantle of rock ‘n’ roll ambassadorship. You simply can’t make a record this fun if you’re worried about turning people off by being yourself. Take it from Katz, as he puts it on the first song from It’s Sorted: “Success is cringe!” The more dire the landscape of creative work broadly—and mainstream rock in particular—the more inspiring it becomes to see a band continuing to do their thing so faithfully.

Watch Cheekface’s performance at the Paste Party in Austin, Texas in 2023 below.

Taylor Ruckle is an Arlington, Virginia-based music writer whose work has appeared in publications like Post-Trash, FLOOD Magazine, and Washington City Paper. Find him at @TaylorRuckle on Twitter, or on the balcony at the 9:30 Club.