The Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009 countdown continues! Each day in December we will deliver one of the essential records of the year - as voted by the scribes here at BraveWords.com.

Double-bass drum roll please ....

#26 - CHEAP TRICK - The Latest (Cheap Trick)

Says BraveWords.com scribe Mitch Lafon, "Cheap Trick's The Latest is yet another example of an iconic '70s band re-discovering their roots. The album captures the band's '80s power pop quirkiness while still delivering the rock/punkish edge of the band's first album."

"We wanted to make a record that sounded like 2009, get something that sounds like us this year," drummer Bun E. Carlos explains.

According to a press release on the album, The Latest is certainly an album likely to curry favor with the Cheap Trick faithful, filled with anthemic power pop tunes such as 'Miss Tomorrow', 'California Girl', 'Alive' and a cover of SLADE's 'When The Lights Are Out', BEATLESque songs like 'Miracle', 'Everybody Knows' and 'Times of Our Lives', and the power ballads 'These Days', 'Closer...' and 'Smile'.

Guitarist Rick Nielsen adds that, "I think it seems like we kinda grew up but didn't too old, 'cause musically there's a lot of different aspects to it. When you hear something like ('Sick Man Of Europe'), you think, 'This can't be the same guys.' It sounds too energized for what people expect from somebody who's been around as long as we have...But musically I think it sounds like we grew up a bit."

BraveWords.com - Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009

#30 - DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT - Addicted (InsideOut)

#29 - GOD DETHRONED - Passiondale (Metal Blade)

#28 - KISS - Sonic Boom (Kiss Records/ Walmart)

#27 - GORGOROTH - Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt (Regain)

#26 - CHEAP TRICK - The Latest (Cheap Trick)