In Another World (2021)
1. The Summer Looks Good On You
2. Quit Waking Me Up
3. Another World
4. Boys & Girls & Rock N Roll
5. The Party
6. Final Days
7. So it Goes
8. Light up the Fire
9. Passing Through
10.Here's Looking at You
11.Another World (Reprise)
12.I'll See You Again
13.Gimme Some Truth
Cheap Trick’s In Another World arrives not as a thunderclap, but as a persistent echo—one shaped by longevity, industry repetition, and a catalogue that stretches back more than four decades. Unlike many of their contemporaries, Cheap Trick remain in active service, and this album, their fourth in just five years (including the yule festive detour), stands as testament to their durability. But it also illustrates the perils of consistency. Releasing albums at this pace today is a novelty, yet it’s precisely that pace that may be dulling the shine. The songs don’t so much leap from the speakers as they lightly jog—familiar, dependable, yet lacking the jolt of inspiration.
Producer Julian Raymond once again helms the sessions, offering a polished, workmanlike finish that borders on the antiseptic. There’s cohesion here, yes, but also a sameness that flattens the terrain. This is a band that once shifted styles with gleeful abandon—seven albums in ten years under seven producers from ’79 to ’88—and that unpredictability gave their output real texture. Back then, you couldn’t mistake a 1982 Cheap Trick track for one from 1983. Now, the boundaries blur. The voice remains, but the color has faded.
That said, the band still knows how to construct a clever pastiche. The title track, Another World, is presented in two versions—one Beatle-esque, the other channeling The Ramones. It’s not simply homage; it’s proof of adaptability, even if the songs themselves don’t crackle with originality. Ironically, the album’s most arresting moment comes from outside the group entirely: a spirited cover of John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth, delivered with the kind of conviction largely missing from the originals.
Elsewhere, sparks appear but rarely catch fire. So It Goes plays well with its vintage influences, but tracks like Boys & Girls & Rock & Roll are just too on-the-nose—a by-the-numbers rocker that sounds precisely as its title suggests. Much of the record slides by inoffensively, but memorably? That’s another question. After multiple listens, many song titles still draw blanks.
And perhaps that's the root issue: In Another World feels like the fourth chapter of a story that had already reached its emotional peak several pages back. The band still tours, still plays, still performs with a wink and a shrug. At a 2021 show, they introduced a track from this record with a quip about it being a good time to grab a beer—joke or not, that line lands with an uncomfortable accuracy.
Ultimately, this is not a bad record. It’s a well-crafted, faintly nostalgic exercise in self-perpetuation. But it also reads like the sound of a band in holding mode, not reaching, not falling, just coasting on past glories. The fire isn’t out—but the coals are cooling.
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