"All Washed Up" is Cheap Trick's new album

When you think of power pop or bubblegum metal, one of the first names that springs to mind is Cheap Trick. Originally out of Rockford, Illinois, the roots of the band stretch back to 1967 with Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson’s Fuse. After the usual comings-and-goings guitarist Nielsen, bassist Petersson, drummer Bun E. Carlos and frontman Randy Hogan became Cheap Trick in 1973; the following year Robin Zander took over front and center, and after a modicum of success, three albums and six years’ slog the band became an overnight sensation with the release of Cheap Trick At Budokan. Originally only for release in Japan the number of imports flooding US record shops convinced the suits to issue the album worldwide in February 1979 (the UK version being pressed in "kamikaze yellow vinyl’) and three million people in the US alone vindicated that decision. Both 1979’s Dream Police and 1988’s Lap Of Luxury went platinum in the US and although the sales and the plaudits might have tailed off a little since then - although they still have 20 million sales to their name - Cheap Trick have continued to be an inventive and entertaining act.

They’re back in the limelight now with their 21st album, their first since 2021's In Another World, and for a band with 52 years on the clock it’s a remarkably sprightly affair. With its tongue-in-cheek title (surprisingly not aimed at the journalists who've written the band off over the years), All Washed Up is a diverse and spunky album, bookended by a strident opener in the title track - a pugilistic rock’n'roller and one of the most exciting songs the band have written - and a slice of trademark silliness, Wham Boom Bang, which rounds things off. Along the way, The Riff That Won’t Quit is a funky foot-tapper guaranteed to blow away the blues, The Best Thing is one of those dreamy, sunny ballads the band excel at, and Rocking With The Band, Dancing With The Band is an upbeat poppy “ooh-ooh” funfest.

Nielsen - a man famed for his inventive writing and his guitars - is still a creative force and an imaginative player, and while Petersson keeps things simple yet tight at the back, he flexes his muscles by driving the haunting A Long Way To Worcester along with a forceful bass line. With Carlos bowing out in 2010, Daxx Nielsen now occupies the drum stool (this is a band that keeps things in the family: when Petersson underwent heart surgery Zander’s son Robin Jnr filled in), and despite having a slightly lower register now, Zander snr demonstrates why he’s still one of the great voices in rock; dubbed ‘the man of 1,000 voices’ he sounds remarkably like the man himself in the Bowie-esque Love Gone. There’s a lot going on here on what is a balanced and well-crafted album. Neither washed up nor hung out to dry, these legendary US funsters still have something to say.