Pom Poko

Cheater

Cheater is a blissfully odd record. Refreshingly different, but holding on the staples of many a genre.

The Norwegian four-piece push their exploratory sound into even weirder places than before. However gnarly things get, though, they always bring the party.

The sophomore release from Norwegian art-punk quartet Pom Poko is full of the same kind of sweet, distorted pleasures that made their first album so much fun.

Cheater finds Pom Poko stretching and redefining their own unique blend of mangled aesthetics and creating a ruptured post-punk-pop world that’ll leave you staggered and anxious for just one more song.

Pom Poko find a groove that works despite its offbeat constituents, leaving a trail of joyful noise in their wake.

The Norwegian quartet’s second album effortlessly waltzes between technical art-rock, dissonant post-punk, and pop’s irresponsible sugar high. It’s as daring as it is darling.

If you’re the kind of person who embraces chaos and doesn’t care if the can of fizzy drink has been shaken up before you open it because the resulting sticky mess is just as sweet, then you’ll love this album.

Record is lean as they come, but it dishes out such an unrelenting wavelength of stir-crazy exuberance that its aftertaste is probably best described as fraught.

As the record goes on, the relatively straightforward structures of the songs grow repetitive, and what at first sounded like wildness by the end sounds like a median indie rock record released any time post-Is This It.