The Get Up Kids - There Are Rules

Contrast this to when The Get Up Kids first came from Kansas to a wider audience – Deep Elm Records were educating us as to what emo, in it’s various styles and sub-genres, could be with their Emo Diaries series; the major labels had picked up the scent of a thriving scene cultivated in part by such bands as Mineral, Braid and Rites Of Spring and gave us the likes of Rival Schools and Jimmy Eat World.

These contemporaries have followed various paths – Jimmy Eat World stayed with us, staying true to their sound with (in my opinion) mixed results. Deep Elm, as a label, adapted and continue to evolve their roster of bands and Rival Schools, much like The Get Up Kids, disbanded, got back together to reminisce and then decided to go back to the studio together.

And here is the fruit of The Get Up Kids' reformed loins.

Opener ‘Tithe’ begins with heavily echoed words and a spacey sense of foreboding before crashing headlong into the music - it's kind of like when a band marches out from backstage to some sound collage, take a last swig from the rider can they brought out with them before picking up their instruments and pummelling you with noise.  Pummelling is definitely the adjective I would use for ‘Tithe’, the drums beating you about the head while the riffs work the body and the fuzzed up vocals shout you down with some vitriol – “You've got the dirty bones / And I've got nothing to wash them with / But after we sing this song / I've got so little left”.  Is this an early admittance of not necessarily being back to stay?  Who can say?

But hold on a second, what was that about “fuzzed up vocals”? That’s not The Get Up Kids? The following track ‘Regent’s Court’ confirms it, bringing to mind The Strokes at their most urgent, whilst later on “Better Lie” invoked in my mind Cold War Kids. In between these indie tinged numbers are some quite spooky synth led numbers. The refrain of “It’s all over” from ‘Rally Round The Fool’ sounds genuinely pained and, yes, emotional. ‘Shatter Your Lungs’ is a few shades lighter in tone with an elastic bass line and some '70s sci-fi synthesiser sounds both carrying the tune and providing special effects. ‘Automatic’ and ‘When It Dies’ both jump ten years into the future, allegorically screaming “'80s!” at the listener.

There Are Rules shows that The Get Up Kids have chosen not to re-hash past glories, but that they have something more to bring to the table; the table being a much changed musical landscape to the one they left back in 2004. More than anything, they’ve all gotten older and maybe a little angrier. There are no obvious songs about girls as there would have been back in their heyday and there is a dark, edgy overtone to the album, which makes for an unsettling listen – like walking around an unfamiliar city at midnight, you never know what is around the next corner. And it is kind of exciting.