The Cheats
Pussyfoolin

Cheaters from Pittsburgh is what he have to deal with coming to this album called Pussyfoolin, an album about fooling cats perhaps. This is the third album by this band who has apparently risen from the rusty ashes of what was once a blue collar town, there is also talk of booze and Marshall amplifiers stacked on one another. True rock’n’roll and all of that, punk and whatever else rockish they have thrown into the press info. At least they look kind of cheap and blue collar, none of them really as fat as most americans but one guy is quite fat. Not that the looks are important for the music, the cover looks a bit vaudevillian but judging from the press info it isn’t. But lets check it out now.

What the hell? that was my first thought when I started this album. It sounds really old so I figured that I had picked something old that I had somewhere by mistake but after a double check I saw that it indeed was an album I was to review. I would say that it sounds a bit like an old cassette recording from a garage band active in the late seventies or possibly early eighties, which means soon half a century ago, to round it up slightly. The sound is dirty, the songs are simple and it is raw and basic garage rock, or maybe some would like to call it punk rock. It is a simply built album without anything complicated, song structures are simple, and nothing about this album appear complicated in any way. Thirteen straight up rock songs of heartache, booze and debauchery if we are to spice it up with some facts from the press information.

Honestly, lots of speak of booze and all that things aren’t something that will make me the slightest bit interested, I don’t care much for such an infantile view on the life and music. And to be honest this is one of those albums, it is not very good this album. The sound is just too old, if they were going for a nod back to the seventies they could have refrained from making it sound like it was recorded back then and instead had it recorded in that style with a more modern sound while still maintaining a raw edge, many bands have successfully pulled this off. The dated sound is not the only issue as such things can be accepted if the songs are good enough to outweigh that but they are not, the songs are a bit dreary and simple and none are really catchy enough to grab my attention. So I would say it is a bit of a waste on my part this album, it sounds cheap and uninteresting to me.

I know though that people must like this though as they have a label and they are said to be a cracking live band and for being that someone will have to want to watch them. I guess that you will have to be that old rusty steelworker with soot in the face and dirt in the moustache to really enjoy this, for you this is perfect. If you do not fit that description I wound say that there are other much more interesting bands out there to explore.