punk this week: cherry cheeks, oddfellows, deadbeat beat + 14 more

Hey, it’s Punk This Week, see/saw’s weekend round-up of the best new punk and rock'n'roll records. This time we’ve got an exceptional new album from Portland’s Cherry Cheeks, the decades-belated return of Denton’s pre-Reds/Marked Men band Oddfellows, some garage pop greatness from Detroit’s Deadbeat Beat, new singles from Artificial Go and Odor Eater, an EP you absolutely don’t want to miss from Finale, and so much more.

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Cherry Cheeks: D.O. & The Bytes [Total Punk]

Kyle Harms’ first Cherry Cheeks album on Total Punk from 2021 was a classic—a no-skips collection of punk songs that were vibrant, bouncy, and had just enough edge. It was a rock’n’roll star turn for the Portland punk, resulting in “artist to watch” status. The 2023 follow-up CCLPII was solid, but every time I put it on, I wondered why I wasn’t just listening to the 2021 album. The songwriting was solid, but I ultimately preferred the old stuff. The new album D.O. & The Bytes has done the unthinkable—it’s a new Cherry Cheeks album that easily stands as their best work yet.

The new one begins with the opening rumble and instant pop stickiness of “D.O. Theme,” an incredibly strong start for a record with narrative ambitions. D.O. is the hero and the Reapers are after him. It’s a record about dehumanization (“you’re just a dataset”), falling in love with a chatbot (“we’ll shoot the shit all day”), and surveillance (“if you’ve got nothing to hide/you won’t mind these spying eyes”). You can pretty neatly split this album into hero songs—ecstatic and sugary—and the more dark, synth-forward villain tracks. The hooks are phenomenal on every single track and the narrative never thwacks you over the head with exposition. Up until D.O., every Cherry Cheeks full-length has felt like one you could play on shuffle. This is a true start-to-finish turntable-ass album and an impressive step forward for the Cheeks.