I found myself momentarily bummed out after my first listen through Cheater. Not from the music, which has quite the opposite effect, but by the fact that I had never previously heard a note from Pom Poko. I felt slightly reassured after learning that A) it's their second album (and the first came out in 2019) and B) they're from Norway. Neither is inherently obvious.

The glorious cacophony Pom Poko produce should be the culmination of years of refinement. Instead, they appear to have come out of the womb fully formed, and Cheater takes their debut but cranks all knobs to 11. The ten tracks here are a 33-minute rollercoaster. While certain snippets call to mind various artists, I see no point in making comparisons. Often simultaneously abrasive and catchy, the quirky charm of singer Ragnhild Fangel and her bandmates results in genre-busting originality that leads to one conclusion: This is Pom Poko and Cheater is something else.