The Cute Lepers

Can’t Stand Modern Music (Blackheart)

By Emily Becker
Published: July 1st, 2008 | 8:50am

While it may seem that punk rock and sentimentality don’t mix, that’s exactly what the Cute Lepers manage to do on Can’t Stand Modern Music. The band’s full-length U.S. debut, on Joan Jett’s Blackheart label, brings back 1977 in all its cheeky, angry glory. The Cute Lepers remind listeners how much variety there used to be in punk’s early days by rolling that era's range of influences into one record. Led by Steve E. Nix (guitarist, lead vocals), the Seattle-based band differs from its predecessors by including a rotating cast of female back-up singers.

Although their record is titled Can’t Stand Modern Music, the Cute Lepers do betray a love of mod music: the record’s second track “Cool City” recasts “In the City,” the title track from the debut of mod-revivalists the Jam. Unsurprisingly, chord progressions familiar to anyone who owns a Ramones record show up in droves, (think: “Terminal Boredom” and “Nervous Habits”); while on “Prove It,” which bears no relation to the track of the same name from Television’s Marquee Moon, the Cute Lepers stretch to include My Aim Is True–era Elvis Costello.

Continuing this showcase of influences, the vocals on “Opening Up” recreate Joe Strummer set against a tight, riffy guitar line reminiscent of early Stiff Records; and on “(I’m) Out Of Order” the clever, anti-authoritarian lyrics set the mood, “Elevators scare me to death / And they’re filled with suits and serious faces,” before letting loose a handclap-driven chorus.

My introduction to punk came 10 years late, through the lens of Burning Ambitions: A History Of Punk (Cherry Red) and I always regretted not being able to see the Damned or the Stranglers play in their heyday. Any track from Can’t Stand Modern Musiccould be tossed into the Burning Ambitions track list without sounding misplaced. The Cute Lepers bring it all back, shaming any band (looking at you Linkin Park and Blink 182) that thinks all it takes to be a punk is a Mohawk and an amp.

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