Cheap Perfume - Don't Care. Don't Ask
- Samuel Stevens
- Oct 3
- 3 min read
For the past decade, Colorado’s Cheap Perfume have been a fierce and glitter-soaked reminder that punk rock is still a weapon. With their latest release, Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask.—which is out now via Snappy Little Numbers—proves that their anger, wit, and urgency have only sharpened with time. It’s a timely rallying cry dressed as a party, equal parts righteous fury and cathartic chaos.
The record bursts open with “Probably It’s Capitalism,” setting the tone with biting sarcasm and a fist-pumping indictment of a system that exploits everyone but the one percent. It’s an overture for an album that never wavers in its stance: loud, angry, unashamed, and determined to wake the listener from apathy.
From there, Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask. swings between searing protest anthems and raw personal confessions. “Dead If I Do” cuts especially deep, with vocalist Stephanie Byrne channelling personal experience into a broader battle cry against gendered violence. It’s one of the album’s most harrowing tracks, but also one of its most powerful—a song that fights for survivors and those silenced by systemic violence.
If “Dead If I Do” represents the record’s gut punch, then “Woke Mind Virus” is its manifesto. Guitarist and co-vocalist Jane No leads the charge, ripping apart the hollow culture-war rhetoric of billionaires and pundits who frame empathy as weakness. With snarling riffs and a chorus that refuses to be ignored.
But Cheap Perfume’s brilliance lies in their ability to balance fury with fun. “Okay Party” offers a breathless, tongue-in-cheek snapshot of band life—the broken vans, the small victories, and the simmering tensions of a decade spent in close quarters. It’s frantic, playful, and honest, serving as a reminder that joy and rage often coexist in the same sweaty basement show.
Elsewhere, the record brims with sharp, incendiary energy. “Down To Riot” stands tall as a working-class anthem, spitting back at the tired post-pandemic refrain of “no one wants to work anymore” and reframing it as a refusal to sacrifice life for someone else’s profit. Musically, it’s a chaotic storm that mirrors its revolutionary intent. “Anytown, USA” paints a scathing portrait of conformity and the decay of the country as a whole. Whereas the track, “No Men,” serves up a biting takedown of toxic masculinity, the band’s feminist ethos crackles through every single line they yell.
Back-to-back, “Blood On Your Hands” and “Desert” expand the album’s scope, stitching together themes of systemic violence, personal betrayal, and survival in bleak landscapes—literal and metaphorical. The album's closer, “I Get Wet,” pushes the record across the finish line in a blur of sweat, noise, and catharsis, the perfect embodiment of Cheap Perfume’s live-show chaos.
Sonically, the album is unapologetically punk: angular riffs, machine-gun drumming, and snarling vocals that flirt with melody without losing their bite. But what makes Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask. feel vital is its precision—Cheap Perfume knows exactly when to sneer, when to shout, and when to lean into the catharsis of a hook. It’s angry, but not sloppy; urgent, but not unfocused.
Much like their earlier albums Nailed It (2016) and Burn It Down (2019), this record pulls no punches against sexism, capitalism, and creeping fascism. But where those albums felt like warnings, Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask. sounds like a declaration of open resistance. It is less a soundtrack to doomscrolling and more a toolkit for survival, solidarity, and uprising.
Cheap Perfume have always been more than just a band—they’re a community, a movement, a party with a purpose. With Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask., they’ve delivered their most cohesive and compelling statement yet.
Don’t Care. Didn’t Ask. isn’t just a punk album—it’s a spark—and a huge one if that. Whether you’re raging in the pit, marching in the streets, or dancing in your kitchen, Cheap Perfume are here to remind you that resistance can be loud, joyful, and absolutely unstoppable.
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