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Cheeseburger

As the name suggests, New York’s very own Cheeseburger come hot, fresh, and good to go. The Iggy-influenced trio — Joe Bradley (vocals), Luke Crotty (beats), and Christy Karacas (riffs) — rocks like Electric Six without the pretentiousness (hold the cheese!) or the Hives, minus the Swedish accents (and matching formalwear). Cheeseburger get a kick out of committing their metropolitan, hedonistic pursuits to record, and the attitude of those exploits finds a home on the band’s latest EP, Gang’s All Here.

From the opening notes of the discordant “Cocaine” to the pseudo-sing-along title track, the boys are out on the town, having what sounds like a hell of a night — or succession of nights — details of which seem destined to be cloudy by the next morning. One gets the idea that this kind of tomfoolery happens more than twice a week with Cheeseburger, and in fact, Bradley confirms just that on the band’s “Saturday Night,” letting us know that “every night is Saturday night” in this camp. Overall, the EP showcases six packed-to-the-brim nuggets of hard, minimal rock, each with punk sensibility and one with a sax solo.

In addition to their impeccable party ethic, Cheeseburger radiates a particularly laissez faire attitude toward releasing the band’s biographical information to needy, word-counting sentence assemblers. A MySpace profile — which lists Cheeseburger’s age as 101 — a paragraph-long press release, and a visually stimulating website serve as the solitary bites of knowledge about our most favorite band to be named after an American culinary specialty. Cheeseburger is — perhaps deliberately, but certainly effectively — shrouded in mystery (and sheathed in wax paper).

The key details remain in the recordings: The energy is savage, the feedback is fierce, the frontman’s yelps are reckless. Past or no past, Cheeseburger has arrived to provide all the urgent gratification (and extra value) we seek.

Cheeseburger live dates: 7/28, New York, NY (Mercury Lounge)

Link: Cheeseburger official site