Review: The Get Up Kids- There Are Rules

The Get Up Kids - There Are Rules (2011- Quality Hill)

 Let’s be real and dust off a dirty word: emo heroes The Get Up Kids produced a lasting impact on teenage ears the world over for more than a decade. In 2005, citing member tensions, the Kansas City quintet went and called it quits. After farewell shows and a few side project/solo releases, the band got saddled up again in 2008 for an anniversary tour of their most-successful album, ‘99’s Something to Write Home About. As these creative fluids are ever-flowing, in-studio Twitpics soon surfaced, a new set of dates was announced and as it was, TGUK was back again with new music with 2010’s four-song Simple Science EP.

Of the first to get announced and played out, the plunky throb of “Keith Case” saw the band going after a more extended and spikier shade than most of what came with the bouncy pop on the Guilt Show release. Here we are now then with the 12-song There Are Rules, the first new album from the Kansas City act in 7 years. Working again with producer Bob Weston (Mission of Burma), Rules strives to be one of the band’s biggest departures yet, (remember when they up and dropped the dusty sleeper On a Wire?) and after its first bite,“Tithe,” the immediate question for Rules seems to be whether or not TGUK 2.0 goes down smooth. The answer is a stern almost.

As they have constantly sought to distance themselves from their emo blemish during the days of the Chris Carrabbas, Hot Topic flocks and suffix additions like “core” got haphazardly tossed around, this release proves evidence for the band’s exertion into something grander and much more fashionable. Entwined by two approaches, Rules is swaddled at dusk by the very spiky, drag-and-release ilk of the aforementioned “Keith Case” and the lobbing of a Hot Hot Heat sound (take the far-too-rhyme-y ”Automatic”) that, though obviously appreciative, quickly falls flat on a second take.

The problem here is that this hearty reunion album of theirs pulls from a notably narrow set of paths, leaving its listener with something that quickly runs together. Matt Pryor and Co. haven’t made a bad album I’d say— “Better Lie” is too friendly to hate and “Shatter Your Lungs” is a shimmery surprise— it’s just a not-quite-yet sort of one. There’s evidence here of a band looking for crossover appeal (pending another departure that is) and I’d imagine most longtime fans of the group won’t mind the bridge, it’s just, seeing as they’re still around after 10+ years, the current set of Rules they’ve imposed makes me wonder if the Kansas Kids will continue to be only ever be just alright? 

The Get Up Kids- Shatter Your Lungs (MP3)

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN FOR THE MISHKA BLOGIN

THERE ARE RULES.