Kevin Bronson on January 12th, 2021

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Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

If there’s room in your life for another conversation — I know, a dicey proposition these days — Cheekface just released their second album. It’s titled, “Emphatically No.” You should respond in the affirmative.

The follow-up to 2019’s “Therapy Island,” Cheekface’s new batch of wry speak-singing and humorous hand-wringing finds the trio of Greg Katz, Amanda Tannen and Mark “Echo” Edwards making brass tacks out of modern life’s rubbish. The songs on “Emphatically No” were written before the pandemic, but they easily could have been inspired by today’s headlines, or media’s long-winded dissection of. Thankfully, Cheekface’s punk/indie-rock punditry doesn’t test attention spans like that — only two of the tracks hang around longer than 3 minutes.

Katz is the best kind of wise-ass: deadpan, self-effacing, quick and economic with his words. The trio’s catchy choruses (see “Best Life”) give you ample reason to keep pace with his streams of consciousness. We could quote lyrics ad infinitum, but they’re all there on Bandcamp … except for the part during the opening track when all three simply bark like dogs.

And if you don’t dig the album, they’re selling wall calendars.

||| Previously: “Emotional Rent Control,” Quarantunes/”Reward Points”