Government Cheese Makes a Triumphant Return With 'Love'
Most people who see the name Government Cheese in the headline of an album review will have one of two reactions; “Whoa! Those guys are still together?” or “Who?” Unfortunately, the second camp is the larger unless you live in the Nashville touring region or listened to a lot of college radio in the '80s. The band, alongside Jason & the Scorchers, were widely expected to go national during their mid-'80s heyday, but never did due to the whims of whatever music industry decided Milli Vanilli should go wide and Government Cheese should not. More's the pity them. After initially breaking up in the mid-'90s, the band has played the occasional show over the years and now have a new mini-tour to support only their second album since 1992, Love.
If you think all of that time apart has made the band's members (all four original band members remain, rounded out by guitarist Viva McQueen, himself with the band since the early '90s) rusty or prone to the “dad rock” trap many bands of that era fell into, you can set your mind at ease. Love rocks as hard as any of those '80s albums, retaining all of the screaming guitars, smart lyrics, and sense of humor that made so many people fall in love with them.
The band's three principle songwriters and vocalists (Billy Mack Hill, Tommy Womack, Scott Willis) have always brought different influences and styles to the table and this is only amplified on Love. Hill's vocal tracks are pure garage rock in the mold of Cheap Trick. Womack's are the most aggressive and humorous, putting his considerable guitar skills to great use. Willis could have stepped straight out of the British invasion, with vocal harmonies and hook driven garage pop at the forefront.
Love is an album with no filler tracks so it's hard to name specific song highlights. But a few do stand just ahead of the rest and its easiest to break them out by vocalist. Album opener “Younger Than I Was” features guitar licks that border on heavy metal in their screams. Lyrically it's a non-stop stream of consciousness rant that makes no sense at all when pulling individual lyrics (“Mama's in the kitchen with a pot of hot grease, throwin' live chickens in it piece by piece) that finds a strange cohesion in its surrealism. In other words, it's a perfect Tommy Womack song.
“Rock and Roll Retirement Home” is another Womack vocal and another song featuring some really smart humor to poke fun at the band's age. “I wish I could remember what it is I meant to say, but I can sing 'Tangled Up in Blue' any day. Senility's fun when you give it all you got. You're snoring when you're sleeping and you're snoring when you're not.” There's a little Ramones in the song's delivery, especially the rest of the band's harmonies during the chorus.”
Willis' songs are the counterpart to Womack's manic manifestos, beautifully sung and arranged in a way that it would be easy enough to convince the uninitiated came from the post-Beatles George Harrison work. “Left for the Sky” is the best of the bunch. There is no shortage of “women left neglected by the rock and roll lifestyle” songs, but that doesn't mean Willis can't add another worthy entry. “Wearing your cologne instead of perfume, waiting for the radio to play your tune. The tour will end and you'll be back home soon” conveys a sad desperation that eclipses the neglected lady in Kiss' “Beth” or The Rolling Stones' “Mother's Little Helper” (which is one hell of a compliment from me because “Helper” is my favorite Stones tune). By the time you get to the bridge “She's alone and she starts to cry, 'cause you're the man who left her for the sky.”
Hill's vocal standout is “Moving On.” It's a song that defies easy comparison to any other band. With a voice less melodic and more rough-hewn than Willis or Womack, Hill's slow drawl is well matched to lyrics that, if anything, are even more surreal than Womack's. Full of references to fairy tale characters, the song also gets high marks for dropping a Douglas Adams reference, “Staring at a mouse on the clock. My key winds but finds no tock. So long, thanks for the fish I'm checking out.”
This is the place where I'm supposed to sum things up by mentioning that Love doesn't quite reach the height's of the band's heyday but is a worthy entry in their catalog nonetheless. But it's not true. Will fans on their sporadic tours ever scream for these songs like they do for “Camping on Acid” or “Fish Stick Day?” No, but that's the nature of nostalgia. It doesn't change the fact that, top to bottom, Love is by far the most consistent album the band has ever released. While I certainly hope it doesn't take another decade for them to follow up, if this is the result of collecting songs for that period of time, it will be worth the weight.
Love is available on April 29 at your favorite indie record shops (and if you're reading this in Nashville, I recommend Grimey's, owned by frequent Cheese collaborator Mike Grimes). April's too early to be looking toward albums of the year, but I keep a running list of standouts in a word document as I hear them and, as of this moment, Love is atop it.