Cheap Trick

Still a tonic on studio album number 20.

Like Angus Young, Rick Nielsen is still carving mileage from a guitar-hero image less orthodox, his lanky geek in a bowtie shtick lending a cartoonish dimension to Cheap Trick’s enduring, fail-safe powerpop. Four decades on from their

Cheap Trick At Budokan zenith – and with the well-preserved Robin Zander still fronting the operation – In Another World cleaves to the telegraphed, lighters-aloft choruses that make Cleveland and other places rock, a palpable Beatles influence pervading Quit Waking Me Up and So It Goes. Though Nielsen’s quip in the accompanying notes that “We just try to knock it out” rings a little too true on Final Days, the nagging guitar hook of Boys & Girls Rock’N’Roll redeems matters, as does an ardent take on John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth, aided by the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones.