Exit Smiles

Just as Jeffrey Novak drops his solo album Lemon Kid, so he drops his band Cheap Time’s Exit Smiles. Being known as a prolific songwriter is just another feather in Novak’s crowded cap as one of the new millennium’s most committed rockers. Along with drummer Ryan Sweeney and bassist/backing vocalist Jessica McFarland (who both appeared on 2012’s Wallpaper Music), Novak revisits and rejiggers rock and pop history until it plays the way he intends. The bratty insouciance behind “8:05” combines classic and mutated Chuck Berry riffs with a chorus that channels Sweet and The Runaways while seeing clear through to the punk era. None of these eight tracks sound studied, though they’re clearly intentional. (Novak is no dummy.) They reel off as if you're hearing a late-‘70s new wave album from a band somewhere between Cheap Trick, Blondie, The Dictators, and, of course, The Saints, with whom it’s been noted Novak has copped a vocal style and shares an aggressive streak.