New Music – Anarchy Filled Nights

Cheena, the intense punk rock band from New York holds back no punches with their newest release, Spend the Night With… It is loud and abrasive, showing nothing but the raw musical emotion behind the shady nights in Brooklyn, The street-smarts of Soho, and the crowded train cars of Queens.

Cheena brings the downright dirty images of New York up in all of their music. One can imagine the crowded streets, back alleys, and of course the different types of people all forming in one single metropolis. Spend the Night With… is able to capture that incredible authenticity of the city life, and while the album is slightly reminiscent of Iggy Pop as the way the recording was done in an almost lower quality sound. Cheena is loud, in your face, and destructive as well.

Tracks like “Stupor,” “Car,” and “Tarzan” have these great changes in the song’s progression. It was intriguing to hear just where the song would finally end up, it was almost as though the tracks progressed themselves and they had this great amount of flow to them.

Other tracks, like “Nights” have this clash of both slower and faster parts that create a duality within the track. The drums while faster and pounding, contrasted with the floating guitar sounds created a great sense of a long day, but an even longer night.

The overall sound quality of Spend the Night With… was fairly eyebrow-raising as it sounded as though the tracks were recorded with only a single microphone. It added another element to the tracks that felt very personal, like this was a recording done in someone’s basement at two in the morning.

Cheena does a great job of creating a setting for their music, as Spend the Night With… progresses musically, it also progresses in telling this great story through instrumental solos and some downright gruff vocals. All throughout Spend the Night With… the vocals continue to repeat in my head as they just sound so dirty, but also elegant at the same time. Going with the theme of duality again, the vocals on certain songs like “Lost My Way” are more melodic and are actually quite pretty. This is contrasting with the instrumentation as it continues to be a mismatch of some guitar switch ups between higher and lower chords, and the drums keeping a steady beat on the floor tom.

Then finally comes the last track, “M.E.” This was easily my favorite track of the whole album as it has this great uplifting guitar riff and it is just the perfect song to move to. It is also one of the quicker songs and just as soon as it begins, it comes to a close.

However, I wish there would have been more use of the drums
as they seemed to only play a background part and there was so much potential to have them really shine through.So come on and spend the night with one of the better releases this year, come on and Spend the Night With… Cheena.