Cheap Trick
Following up its breakthrough concert album of last winter, Cheap Trick is releasing this studio album that was actually recorded before the Live at Budokan appearance. Here, though the band is apparently content to string together endless pop-rock clichés (including a glut of guitar flash), the clichés are energetic and exceptionally well produced. Dream Police ("Drivin' me insane—those men inside my brain"), for example, is a frantically enjoyable hymn to paranoia. Way of the World slows down slightly and adds some unexpectedly smooth harmonies. As a rock parody, however, some of the group's lyrics would be sublime ("You got me burnin' burnin' with desire/ You got me burnin' burnin' like a fire—oh yeah"). Maybe they were intended as parody, but only maybe. In any case, the melodies are fine, and the album's last cut, Need Your Love, is a half slow-and-heavy, half fast-and-heavy dazzler.
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