Cheekface bass guitarist Amanda Tannen sings a rare lead vocal on the second verse of MFT. When I first heard the song, which was one of five singles released prior to the release of sixth album Podium, I was curious to why Mandy’s verse was not quite as Cheekface-coded as I’d come to expect – Cheekface-coded meaning whimsically smudged with semi-ironic online-isms amid a helpful, liberal message. Sure, going back, frontman Greg Katz’s verse is not either, though his chorus – “I like it when you gaslight me just a little” – felt par for a band with a song about only getting turned on when confused by one’s partner (Art House), and on this same album mentions cuck chairs. And then I learnt what the song is actually about. MFT is about a girl, named Sophie, who took her own life, and confided only in ChatGPT that she was going to – not a mental health expert (“the thing about the expert is they don’t keep secrets”), just AI.
Cheekface have written a song about something that sounds like an obscure one-off, but will keep happening – and has been known to keep happening – in a world that, in one way or another, continues to cut out any human aspect. It is not a protest song necessarily, but a heartbreaking tribute to human life lost in a manner that we, as a species, need to discontinue. Greg’s verse is from the AI bot’s point of view, whereas Mandy’s is from Sophie’s. It is a route not taken uncommonly by Cheekface – to put oneself into the shoes of another – but for the band to do so through such an evidently real lens, still in their own surreal world that mirrors that real world more and more each album cycle, feels heartbreaking.
Podium is a protest album, a heartbreaking, angry – though at times rewardingly jovial – protest album that answers questions of what happens when this likeably nerdy, funny band, is sliced open and its saddest thoughts are projected onto the world. You could never accuse Cheekface, at any point in its run, of making music that isn’t about something, but Podium advances the Cheekface formula, partially with multiple hip hop-ified songs that use real turntables (not AI!) and ska/reggae-adjacent songs that use real brass (not AI!), but mostly with a greater emotional outpour. The album features songs that are still funny despite being heartbreaking, nerdy despite being angrily rebellious, and sexy despite being nerdy.
MFT is indicative not only of the album’s emotional offloading, but its continuous musical richness, beginning with a guitar riff that combines The Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar with the bit from Tenacious D’s Kickapoo where Meatloaf comes in. Mandy’s basslines have a wild crunch to them, dictating the whereabouts of its mix of diatonic chords and slight twists.
As unusually dark, as indicative as MFT is of the new heights of Cheekface’s concern, it does not carry Podium or its importance. Hostile Street is here to take over; a song as smitten with quirky homages to hip hop – McKinley Dixon’s voice is even snuck in at one point! – as it is the concept of unfriendly divides, or hostile street furniture. Furniture designed to deter homeless people is ridiculous shithousery, a few stones’ throws from the song’s together-y chorus(“I’ll give you CAKE if you want it”), west coast synths, and one of those classic descending-resolving chord progressions like Pearl Jam’s Dissident or Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely.
Speaking of Isn’t She Lovely, the big brass resolve of The Weather also bears a resemblance. I don’t think there’s a Cheekface song up to this point that commends friendship and perseverance quite like this one – I adore the moments in which Greg bellows, in the background, “not us three, not you and me!”, concerning his and his woke friends’ inability to fall for fake content, misinformation or AI. The world that has unfolded since Cheekface formed has been a strange trip, but these three people have been on that trip together, and they’re better because of it.
The Weather isn’t the only celebratory song. Peanut Butter Prawns odes strange bedfellows that make great marriages, the subject in this case being two GameStop clerks. The JER-featured brass frenzy is beautifully sunshiny, unashamed of its silly messaging, unashamed to use lyrics that sound a little Grease-like – “they go together like peanut butter prawns” – and unashamed to use a powerfully dramatic pre-chorus to build to those silly lyrics.
Themes of basic perseverance and solidarity fight their way into No Fly Zone, otherwise about indecision where returning to a toxic ex is concerned. While a ska-esque, offbeat keyboard gifts this little piece of funk rock some extra richness, the song is a valid inclusion for its quotable lyrics alone: “it’s the corporate Christmas party and you’re dancing with the boss / and you’re lying to the dentist when he asks you, ‘did you floss?’”.
No Fly Zone shares a lyric with There Is a God – “do you follow Jesus this close?”. In There Is a God, the question is asked by a woman followed by the narrator. She’s just walking her dog, but she’s looking “smart and hot”. While retaining the album’s attentive production – courtesy of Eric Palmquist – which keeps up the ‘90s rap vibe, I don’t find the song quite as musically compelling, though the hook is sultry, Greg’s melodic rapping is whitely profound, and much like No Fly Zone, you’ll take a few quotables away from it, most of which are about Juicy sweatshirts and Hailey Bieber smoothies.
Podium is, oddly, into talking about God. Greg’s melodic rapping again spills into finale I Decline, which hails his best mini-rant as he spits “if you think that there’s a god, does he read the bible / and if you think he reads the bible, then what are
his thoughts? / does he flip the page and say, ‘oh man, I love this stuff’ / or does he roll his eyes at stories people just made up?”. In and of itself, the song is sort of the ultimate Cheekface song; a nerdy funk rock outro with guitars that remind me of Beastie Boys’ aggressive Beatles-sampling on The Sounds of Science.
I Decline does feel like a celebration, as does U Can’t Do It, whether due to Greg’s happier yells – “it was a SHOCK” – or its general, ‘in spite of everything’ tone. We’ll celebrate eventually, even with pessimism’s incumbency. That’s where anthemic roars like those of Black Site come in handy, bookended by a rallying cry of “I got Soul, but I’m not Korea, Korea, Korea, Korea, Korea” – referencing both Pavement’s Cut Your Hair, and more obviously, The Killers’ All These Things That I’ve Done. ‘Tis a fine contrast to the subhuman conditions of actual black sites, which have made a comeback, presenting a juxtaposition via the album’s second darkest theme after that of MFT. Still, the first verse starts, wonderfully, like your funniest casual Cheekface song – “I boycotted everything. Nothing got better, it only got worse, and now I don’t know where to buy soap”.
A similar, ICE-based theme is found on Discrete. Greg’s down-pitched voice emerges like a joke, even tells jokes, but is weaponised first and foremost as the resister’s answer to the ICE officer’s masky anonymity. This is Cheekface at its most vitally dangerous and militant despite retaining some humour, marked initially by Mandy’s hungry bassline. It reads like an ode to those willing to take to the streets to either deter or protest, whilst the rest of us force ourselves to stay inside, to shop online, whilst this administration’s version of police stating – and abandonment of free speech, particularly where the president’s feelings are concerned – gets rid of democracy.
Preceding track EBT feels like the calm before the storm of Discrete. The rare Cheekface acoustic number floats and wanders, delicately assessing the toll of poor mental health – “things look like a hammer when you look like a nail”. It follows the fast, spiritual, jazz fusion rock of I Don’t Work Here, which sounds like part-Remain in Light loop, part-Rouge stage from Sonic Adventure 2. Featuring a fucking dagger of a chord that initiates the chorus (actually just a VI but somehow more vicious than the norm), the song satirically conflates the inadequacy of a shop assistant unaware of what any of his stock does, or what its labels mean, with the compliance of a corporation that sponsors, or is sponsored by, an even greater evil. It wouldn’t surprise me if the song immediately descended from the recent fracas of Cheekface denying AT&T use a song for a commercial due to ties with ICE. Cheekface make music fast enough for that to be possible. Regardless, Greg’s final rant, from the point of view of a stark raving mad shop assistant, is fantastic.
The album itself transforms Greg from guy yelling in a fast food restaurant to enlightened word soldier. Any caricature of novelty one could decipher from a previous Cheekface album is obfuscated in favour of a protest album with no abandonment of meaning in any moment. Podium doesn’t sound like other protest albums; it is still whimsical, wacky, weird, and plenty of other words beginning with W. It is a W. It is Cheekface being Cheekface, but also, being the necessary musical resistance to this dangerous age of Trump, AI, division and war. It is Cheekface’s best, most consistent album, never a dull moment, explosive and full of detail in the form of clever songwriting and kooky production tricks. Have our favourite nerds made the best album of the year?
Best tracks – The Weather – MFT – Black Site – I Don’t Work Here – Discrete.
Rating – 10 out of 10
