Do you ever listen to a band, and proceed to question what you’re doing with your life? Or what you aren’t doing? We plan our mental escape routes through things that we can’t touch such as music and films. I listen to certain bands, and I’m filled with this urge to pack up my records and go somewhere else. Certain places are romanticised in music. I guess real life shows how ugly it is. For me, London is at its best at night. Then again, anything and anyone looks half decent in the dark. For the most part I do love London. I just don’t like how cold some of the people can be. I know we’re all trying to get to and from work like everyone else, but just be fucking nice you know? Have some manners.
Cheap Riot are a band to make you get rid of your mundane tasks and to just go somewhere else. We all know that somewhere else is always better. My mum and stepdad are currently in Turin, and the photos make me see how soulless London is in comparison. Anyway, I’m projecting. I’m just annoyed that in a few weeks I’m 29, then next year I’m 30 and what have I done? Nothing. A lazy escapist with no sense of bravery. It’s alright, because the world clearly needs another idiot with a music blog (sarcasm.) Cheap Riot bring out this frustration and sorry, you’re getting the brunt of it. All sense of hopelessness and feeling bored just come out of their music. It’s the kind of music to do a load of nothing to whilst roaming the streets with office workers looking at you like you’re scum, “Get a job.” Whatever. (I have a job, I really like my job and it feels weird to feel that way at times.)
Cheap Riot have proper short Punk-ish songs. Declaring themselves as “part-time Punks” should not deter you. It lured me in, I wanted to see if they were what they said they were. Punk can be seen as quite redundant. There’s nothing more offensive than the style of music called “pop-punk.” Fortunately, Cheap Riot aren’t pop-punk and I doubt they are part-time Punks. Sure they sound like all the bands I love, but if I hated them I wouldn’t listen to them or write about them. Their snotty and bratty sound is a tamer take on the likes of Dead Boys and Black Flag, but the aggression is there. You can’t tame this kind of aggression and these Parisian guitar slinging noise makers are where it is at. Maybe Lester Bangs wouldn’t spit out his drink out over these guys, but I love them. I love how they are unapologetically loud and at times woeful in their songs. They could sing in obscure dialect and I’d still be moved by their music.
As mentioned previously I do love songs that last over 5 minutes, but sometimes I just want a 2 minute track and being made to feel like I’m being smacked in the face (fully aware that there are people who would gladly smack me in the mush, but you get my point.)
Friday sees the release of their debut record, Ballroom Portraits. It is loud, it is passionate and it is a record that makes you wholeheartedly believe in this band. It is instant love with Cheap Riot and I hope they hope on the Eurostar and play some shows over here. Again they are a band that I reckon you need to see live to really get their sound. Everyone needs a new band to fall hopelessly in love with, and for me Cheap Riot are exactly that band. They make you want to find some like-minded folks and make your own noise.
You can stream the record here: http://cheapriot.bandcamp.com/album/ballroom-portraits
You can buy it from Friday.
Beat In My Bones. 