Bang Zoom Crazy Hello (2016)
1. Heart on the Line
2. No Direction Home
3. When I Wake Up Tomorrow
4. Do You Believe Me?
5. Blood Red Lips
6. Sing My Blues Away
7. Roll Me
8. The In Crowd
9. Long Time No See Ya
10.The Sun Never Sets
11.All Strung Out
To speak of Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello is to consider a band well past its commercial apex, yet stubbornly
and admirably unaware of that fact. Released in 2016 — a full seven years after their last studio outing — Cheap Trick’s
17th album arrived not so much with a bang, but with a rustle of acknowledgment. Still, for those paying attention,
this was no mere footnote. It was, remarkably, their strongest statement since the halcyon days of the late 1970s.
By then, they had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a coronation that, in truth, had taken far too
long. One suspects the nod had less to do with commercial momentum than with critical penance: every band worth its salt
post-Nirvana had cited Cheap Trick as a totemic influence. Suddenly, their once precarious position in the canon was cemented.
Enter Bang, Zoom, perfectly timed — whether by accident or design — to coincide with this renaissance. The album
doesn’t pander or grovel for relevance. It roars to life with a clarity and confidence rarely heard from artists of their tenure.
Producer Julian Raymond (also responsible for the uneven The Latest) tightens the screws here, sharpening Rick Nielsen’s guitars
to a serrated gleam and letting Robin Zander’s ageless vocals cut through with impossible ease. If anything, Zander's voice defies time —
a minor miracle in an era of Auto-Tuned survival tactics.
One could dwell on the absence of Bun E. Carlos, the band’s original drummer, now relegated to a sort of legal limbo.
Daxx Nielsen — Rick’s son — steps in, and while purists may protest, the transition is musically seamless. Daxx’s playing,
particularly on The Sun Never Sets, is muscular and expressive without being overbearing.
The record pivots between high-grade power-pop and hard-edged glam-stained rock, and when the band wanders slightly —
the Bowie-channeling When I Wake Up Tomorrow, the brash stomp of Blood Red Lips — it feels adventurous rather than confused.
Even the seemingly incongruous cover of Dobie Gray’s In Crowd lands with odd charm. It shouldn't work, but somehow it does,
perhaps because Cheap Trick have long known that swagger and sincerity aren’t mutually exclusive.
What’s most striking is how cohesive the album feels. Unlike some of their previous latter-day releases
(The Latest, for example, often felt like a mix tape with something to prove), Bang, Zoom hums with unity of purpose.
It doesn’t aim to be the biggest thing on the shelves — it simply wants to sound good in your car with the windows down.
They may never again fill arenas the way they once did. But on Bang, Zoom, Crazy… Hello, Cheap Trick sound as if they finally don’t
care. They’ve already won.
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