I can’t stand bands with good intentions but sound like they’re slowly putting a pole up the audience’s collective ass. Randy is not one of them. With the legions of Hives insta-fans, a quick way to test their grit is to ask ‘em about Randy, ‘cause anyone up on Swedish-fuckin’-rock will attest to this four-piece’s ability to slay some serious musical dragons. They go right to the rock’n’roll wellspring and hearken back Chuck Berry more than occasionally. I don’t want to parallel the Hives too much, but this EP is sorta confusing, like the Hives’s Hate To Say I Told You So three-song CDEP, which had two previously released tracks. Cheater contains an already released song off their last album, The Human Atom Bombs, two songs off their CD single, I Don’t Need Love, and the title song that’s also on the newest Epitaph comp – so there’s only two songs exclusive to this release. Song origins aside, Randy plays crisp, intentionally lo-fi recorded rock’n’roll that covers topics between straight-up social consciousness (they’ve had tracks on AK Press comps) to just having fun and hanging out. I like that they’re brash and not stodgy. I like the fact that they totally deny releasing a ska 7” that is long out of print. Randy’s songs are so good that when co-creator of this here magazine and I are listening to ‘em on his truck stereo after getting home, we’ll sit with the engine running until the song ends, then go about our business. It just wouldn’t be right to leave a song half played. I mean, shit, what do I have to do that’s so important to mess with the magic of rock’n’roll? Powerful good.
–todd (G-7 Welcoming Committee)