Cheap Girls – God’s Ex-Wife

Michigan power pop trio Cheap Girls have announced the release of God’s Ex-Wife, a collection of rarities and B-sides from their back catalouge, that has been released via Asian Man Records. This is their first release since 2014’s critically acclaimed album, Famous Graves and serves as a teaser to an album of new material that was hinted at after their 2015 tour with The Restorations and Chris Farren. When I see that a band has assembled a collection of their unreleased and obscure material I become nervous, as something of a completist with certain bands I’ve bought compilations of unreleased material, and swiftly discovered why it was wasn’t released, so what does God’s Ex Wife have in store?

Opening track Better Thoughts Instead kicks off the album in fine style with three minutes of power pop perfection and Twice As Much keeps the momentum going nicely. The tempo is kept up until you hit the mid way mark, Cheap Girls give you a breather from the fine power pop at this point with the mellow introspective acoustic number, Gone All Summer. God’s Ex-Wife swiftly kicks back in with an impressive alternate take of Cored To The Empty and a cover of Bad Religion‘s Kerosene. The format for the second half of this collection mirrors the first as you get five more energetic numbers, before the album draws to a close in a quieter fashion with I Know, Right. God’s Ex-Wife is an impressive collection of ten tracks of power pop bookmarked by two slower and acoustic numbers, this is an album that doesn’t in any way resemble a collection of rejected songs and b-sides.

The fact that an album of this quality can be made up of from a collection of b-sides, outtakes and compilation appearances is very impressive, and it tells you everything you need to know about Cheap Girls. Many collections of outtakes and b-sides reflect the fact that the material is not from when a band is firing on all cylinders, and they are strictly for die hard fans. This is certainly not the case with God’s Ex-Wife, the majority of the tracks on here would have happily graced a full album, or in some cases made a damn fine single. This is a collection that shows you exactly why the Cheap Girls are held in such high esteem by bands such as The Gaslight Anthem, Joyce Manor, Against Me! and The Hold Steady.

You can order God’s Ex-Wife via Asian Man Records here and Cheap Girls here