Los Angeles trio and Spectral Nights favourites Cheekface return with ‘Podium’, their sixth full-length album on 28 July. The album retains the band’s trademark wit and hooks as they offer musings on everyday life as the world burns around us – the central theme being a caring person in an uncaring society.

The album opens with ‘Hostile Street’, a song that finds Greg Katz declaring ‘You can destroy me, you can reduce me’ and ‘I wanna be reduced’ against a Ben Folds Five-meets-Cake soundtrack. There’s room for burst of funky guitar amidst the self-deprecation: What if I wanna be destroyed?’ ‘There is a God’ follows with an art rock vibe and some killer wordplay: ‘A calendar is great if you care what day it is’. It then descends into a tale of belief, witches and a dog in a sweatshirt…

‘Peanut Butter Prawn’ is an upbeat and high-tempo piece with a bouncing bass line and handclaps aplenty – an alt-rock B52s, if you will. The song covers toxic bosses, greedy shareholders and the importance of sticking together: ‘They’d say that everyone’s like this, not just in the same way’. ‘The Weather’ follows with boasts of doing push-ups, speaking several languages and making a decent income disappear before Greg considers the power of fake content and whether he’d ever fall for it. ‘MFT’ reminded us of Ben Kweller with its heart-on-sleeve lyrics about ‘fucked’up feelings’ while ‘Rent is Down’ considers the rising cost of EVERYTHING while reassuring yourself ‘the rent is down in my mind these days’.

Lead single ‘Black Site’ finds Cheekface going political and boy, does it suit them, as they talk about working hard only for the result to be ‘Nothing got better, it only got worse’, while ‘No Fly Zone’ has Cheap Trick-style scattergun riffs and powerful words about finding companionship: ‘I’m just trying to prove to myself I’m not alone’. ‘I Don’t Work Here’ is an eminently agreeable capitalist rant delivered against a samba beat and ‘Discrete’ talks about the division that still exists across the world: ‘They’re gonna take our neighbours off the street’.

‘U Can’t Do It’ is a super-short and sharp song, reminiscent of Guided by Voices but with a punk-rock edge, while the closing ‘I Decline’ offers a celebration of doing your in-fighting in company time and has almost-rapped verses before settling with a couple of lines that sum up our always-on world: ‘If I decline, you’ll see it online, a thousand memes roll by’.

With their latest album, Cheekface have done it again. All-too relevant and real observations – delivered with perfect humour and winning melodies – see them take top place on the ‘Podium’ again.