Originally formed in 1973 but not seeing widespread success until 1978, Cheap Trick were the princes of power pop for all of two years before fading into obscurity in the early 1980s. They had a brief resurgence later in the decade with the stomach-churningly saccharine hit “The Flame,” but apart from that, their time at the top of the rock food chain was effectively over. 

Despite being a fan of the band myself, I was not particularly thrilled to hear they would be releasing new music this year. The records they released after 1979’s “Dream Police” remained unplayed in the rotations of disc jockeys across the country, and I hadn’t so much as thought about listening to most of their output dated past 1988. What with the way things have been going for so-called legacy acts and the quality of their newer outputs, I wasn’t hedging any bets on “All Washed Up” to begin with. But, hey, giving it a title like that, at least they’re self aware. 

Taking even a cursory glance at the album cover, we are already being granted an intimation as to what treacherous paths lie ahead. The “All Washed Up” album cover is just as uninspired as the content within, and depicting a washing-machine related pun on the artwork is dreadfully unoriginal. Why not do something more oceanic? Or was that too obvious? 

If the bland, visually unappealing art wasn’t bad enough, it is apparent the band used AI to create the cover. This is a controversial decision for any artist, particularly when they hired real live photographers to create album covers in the 1970s. They mustn’t have felt like hiring any photography talent for this one, because otherwise I don’t see why a self-respecting band of their caliber would stoop to such a low. 

After mustering the courage to move past the terrible cover, we have the overly bombastic title track. Whether the unnecessary crunch on the guitar work was intentional or not, it remains some of the ugliest guitar work Rick Nielsen has ever done–all the charisma his instrument used to possess has seemingly seeped away. If that is not enough to put you off of this song, then Robin Zander’s vocal performance should do the trick. 

 Old Robin Zander sounds like a young Iggy Pop. This coupled with the salacious lyrics Nielsen is surely too old to be writing–instead of something more thematically relevant–turns an already bad song into an even worse one. 

“All Wrong Long Gone” is closer to the stereotypical style of 1980s pop songs, and it quickly becomes evident that Cheap Trick are stagnating. They are stuck in their late 1990s career slump, which was merely an extension of their slump in the mid 1980s, and some of the key musical elements that are reminiscent of the better Sammy Hagar songs aren’t fooling anybody. 

I have no idea why the band would follow up “All Washed Up”, a tune about promiscuity with the wife-defending banter of “All Wrong Long Gone”. The verses on this one keep flip-flopping between singing about that and typical rockstar woes with no clear tether between the two, and I’m beginning to suspect they just haphazardly taped some unfinished songs together and hoped for the best. 

The closest we get to classic Cheap Trick is “The Riff That Won’t Quit.” Still, it’s a pretty big hop, skip and jump away from the raucous energy they used to have. The ghost of Sammy Hagar continues to linger in the background, and the lyrics remain embarrassing like poetry a high school freshman submits for a local competition and cringes to remember years later. At least this track is mercifully short. 

By the fifth song, Cheap Trick begin recycling some musical patterns from their old live renditions of “Can’t Hold On.” Unfortunately, they are unlikely to achieve that kind of raw power ever again. While “Bet it All” is one of the more tolerable songs on the record, there’s nothing really worth revisiting unless you want to hear a tinny guitar part that sounds more on par with shaking a metal garbage can than playing an instrument. “Bet it All” is also a very low-stakes song–an attempt has been made to harness the sinister energy of 1978’s “Heaven Tonight”, but I can’t really take it seriously, because the topic of gambling is worlds away from overdosing. 

“The Best Thing” is a sentimental snooze-fest, filled with cliche lyrics and bogus nothing statements. It’s schmaltzier than a solo Rod Stewart song, with absolutely none of the class. Is “you’re the best thing that ever happened to me/in the future of what we’ve got” really supposed to pass as good songwriting? 

Continuing with more meaningless statements is “Twelve Gates.” This was released as the lead single from the album, and the band have certainly taken a big step backwards from their early days, when they had the gall to release well-written, meaningful songs about suicide as lead singles instead of peddling this meaningless, hard-to-listen-to drivel to their fans. It sounds like it was ripped straight from the early 2000s, and comes across as so preachy that it might as well be a Protestant pastor. 

Sandwiched between two love songs so similar they might as well be the same tune (“Bad Blood” and “Love Gone”), “Dancing with the Band” is a minimal-energy attempt at recreating the sleazy lyrical accounts similar to those made by bands more forthcoming with their groupie songs. That never was Cheap Trick’s style, though, and the song suffers for it. It’s been drenched with disinfectant, like they wanted to create something fit for the soundtrack to a PG rated Disney Channel movie. 

“A Long Way to Worcester” has nothing going for it save for the clumsy, plodding, barely-audible bass line, and “Wham Boom Bang” is possibly the worst album closer I’ve ever heard. It is disgustingly out of place style-wise, emulating the twee “quirkiness” of 2010s pop made by Meghan Trainor and others of that ilk. The tune ends so unsatisfyingly, it’s as if the band doesn’t even know their own record finished playing. 

With Producer Julian Raymond having worked on several of Cheap Trick’s previous albums, it’s surprising to see his work on this record come out sounding so amateur. Throughout the record, guitars are improperly layered, vocals tower over all instrumentation and the bass is so inaudible it’s a surprise they even bothered to let Tom Petersson into the studio. 

If Daxx Nielsen’s drum work is any better than that of Trick’s former drummer, Bun E. Carlos, then Raymond certainly did not do a good job showing it. Producers used to know how to augment the personalities of bands through their work, so either Trick has run out of personality or Raymond slept through that part of class. Tom Werman did a better job producing 1977’s “In Color”. 

Production notwithstanding, all these new songs from “All Washed Up” make it clear that Rick Nielsen’s songwriting muscles have nearly completely atrophied. In their heyday, Cheap Trick was proof that you didn’t need to be a walking dictionary to write good songs, but their newest songs are so offensively simple they are practically brain-dead. 

Despite the failure of the production and lyrical work, unique instrumentation might have been the saving grace of this album. However, all the songs sound so uninspired, unoriginal and downright boring that it is practically not worth it to sit through the whole record front-to-back. It is possible further efforts from the band could warrant a decent, if not good album in future years. But Cheap Trick haven’t been that good in a long time. 

Rating: 2/5