Do you ever wish there was a band that was just punk enough but also just 1980's hair metal enough? Well, Cheap Tragedies wander around these two seemingly disparate genres all willy-nilly. From the dive-bombing intro to the fade out at the end, "Days of Our Lies" puts on pleather and encourages you to form a circle pit. Vocalist Antony is unafraid to pinch off his gravelly baritone to hit some high notes and the first side ends the decidedly more punk-leaning second track with a classic vocal outro scream as the band hits full stop.

The backside of this weird purply vinyl (thanks No Idea!) leaves the hair metal behind and sounds more 80's California punk like The Circle Jerks or maybe Dead Kennedys. The second half of the first track even goes for the slow punk of those bands before blasting out in classic 1-2 fast punk beat. They solidify this sound with another fast track of CA punk. An absolutely filthy bass interlude is definitely my favorite part of the whole record as it introduces a solidly rhythmic outro that unfortunately just fades out while the vocals just yell some stuff over the top.

This record leaves me wanting more. There seem to be too many things going on and some good ideas in there among the things, but I wanted the good parts to be more than just some small part of what was happening. The first track was intriguing and the last track was interesting, but I'm gonna need more than intriguing and interesting to be your #1 fan, Cheap Tragedies.

If you like this review, you can buy me a coffee.