Okay, from the moment that Steve E. Nix and The Briefs sleazed their way out of Seattle, the band caused a lot of confusion in listeners accustomed to grungy things coming out of the Pacific Northwest. The Briefs were, after all, a tight, dayglo, 80s-fashioned punk band; they didn’t really fit in with their surroundings at all. With that band currently on hiatus, Nix has resurfaced with the nearly identical-sounding Cute Lepers – a band that isn’t quite so in love with neon and hence at least has a potential compatriot in their hometown in Kurt Bloch and The Fastbacks.
On their debut full-length, the Lepers continue in their vein of The Briefs as far as they’re still pushing 80s chord progressions and a ton of New Wave-isms that do fly a little better than anything the Briefs have done for the simple reason that, while retro sounds and styles are apparent on Can’t Stand Modern Music, none of the songs crutch on the gimmicks or masquerade them as hooks. Tracks including “Nervous Habits,” “So Screwed Up” and “The News Is Always The Same,” for example, owe an unplayable large debt to the Reagan era as far as each song is very plastic and cheesy but, unlike bands including The B-52s or the Briefs, that point is the one from which The Cute Lepers jump off in order to unearth their own pop gems. “Prove It” (which, yes, brazenly rips off The Pixies’ “Dig For Fire”), “Opening Up,” “Terminal Boredom” and “The Day After The End Of The World” all venture out of the mall and into the garage and pull out some great, speedy riffs as well as even managing some decent songwriting to boot.
With that said, the sensible readers out there are all asking the same question: “But is it any good?” Well, depending upon how you feel about The Briefs’ mode of plastic punk, you’ll either love Can’t Stand Modern Music or hate it. This record is a good step away from that sound that still finds Steve E. Nix able to float without the gimmicks, but time and future releases will tell if he’ll be able to pull out something memorable. This is only step one; he’s not there yet.
Artist:
www.www.thecutelepers.com
www.myspace.com/thecutelepers
