The Get Up Kids: There Are Rules
Very few bands rode the independent success of the late 90s and early 2000s emo wave quite like The Get Up Kids. But they critically struggled in the mid-2000s, receiving poor reviews for their 2002 album, On a Wire and 2004’s Guilt Show. The band ultimately broke up in 2005. But like Braid and Cap’n Jazz, the temptation to reunite was too much for them. The group reunited in 2008 and have been together ever since. There Are Rules is the band’s first record since reuniting and their fifth studio album overall.
There are reasons why bands like Pixies and The Replacements reunited but never released new albums and that is because band’s might want the money of a reunion tour but do not want to soil their legacy with a poorly received album. The Get Up Kids had a highly successful reunion tour but that was apparently not enough for them as they brought themselves back into the studio to collaborate with Ed Rose, who produced The Get Up Kids’ Guilt Show as well as Motion City Soundtrack‘s I Am the Movie and The Appleseed Cast‘s Low Level Owls.
The album is frankly a little all over the place. “Regent’s Court” features tightly wound guitar arpeggios that are dead-ringers for mid-80s R.E.M.. That track is followed by “Shatter Your Lungs” on the album. “Shatter Your Lungs” is reminiscent of OK Go‘s “This Too Shall Pass” with its heavy rhythm section grooves with light keys over the top.
There are almost no songs on the album that I would consider classic Get Up Kids but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The wave of emo that Get Up Kids were a part of is now long over and the group seems to have reunited with a goal to evolve and that seems to be what There Are Rules showcases: a new evolved sound. The kinks are not completely worked out but There Are Rules seems to be the first step in a new and exciting journey for the Get Up Kids.
Ratings: 8.0/10
MP3: The Get Up Kids “Shatter Your Lungs”
Buy: iTunes or Amazon
The Get Up Kids: There Are Rules
