Review Summary: Back to the Known
Career Suicide and Ruiner are two of my favorite punk albums of all time. In media prior to the release of Cheap Heat, AWS talked about the sounds of Cheap Heat being a mix of these two highly regarded albums. While lead single Midnight Ghost[/i] did largely live up to this promise, the next two singles
Let it Ride and
Tunnel Vision felt more like a faster slightly refined version the more poppy heartfelt tracks from previous album Lose Your Delusion. Although I was a little bummed, the songs were still enjoyable enough.
Thankfully, I am happy to report the album as a whole does largely deliver what was promised.
This album reminds me of when The Lawrence Arms released Oh Calcutta!. Both bands were coming off enjoyable but somewhat divisive mid-tempo records. And both bands came back with a resounding YES to the question of whether they could still bring the heat. And this album does precisely that on nearly every track. Considering the relatively disappointing recent output of contemporaries like Strung Out and Propaghandi, A Wilhelm Scream remains in top form when it comes to delivering a killer shred fest of an album.
Newcomer Ben Murray (previously singer/songwriter in Heartsounds) does a good job blending in relatively seamlessly as the new guitarist in a legitimately demanding and challenging job. It’ll be interesting to see how he does on the road, but his influence on this album is felt here and there, especially on single
I Got Tunnel Vision which sounds as if the guitars were grifted straight from a Heartsounds album. Looking forward to hearing more of his influence on future albums.
Overall, I would place this album somewhere around Partycrasher in terms of quality in their discography. Cheap Heat delivers more consistently than that album, but unlike PC I’m just not sure there are any real “classics” here in the vein of
Number One ,
Ice Man Left a Trail , etc. Some songs like
The Scumbag Grift and personal favorite
Run! do come damn close though. Closer
Poison II is enjoyable enough as well, but can’t really hold a candle to unbelievable closers like
Born a Wise Man or
We Built This City (on Debts and Booze).
This album can’t really touch Ruiner or Career Suicide in terms of being true cannon. However, it’s still a fantastic effort that totally stands on its own as a cohesive product, without really any duds across the ten track list (apart from perhaps the somewhat cheesy
Visitor: Unimpressed ). In 2026 I’m just damn happy this band is still making music this good period, these criticisms are all very TRULY minor gripes.
Bottom line: This is simply another solid entry in a larger than life catalog that from one of the greatest punk bands of all time. Here’s hoping the next album comes along as fast as this one did!
