Get Up Kids
“There Are Rules”
(Quality Hill)

Most people I know who grew up with the Get Up Kids hate this album. Of course, if you go back to the days of “On a Wire,” it had a similar reception and it’s a fan favorite now, albeit nearly a decade later. For their first studio full-length since “Guilt Show,” the Get Ups have replaced their primary influences of The Replacements and Husker Du with part shoegaze and part Brit-pop. There’s lots of fuzzy guitars, sound effects and distorted vocals.

The first track for “There Are Rules,” “Tithe” is an aggressive pop song that finds itself bubbling as some sort of could’ve-been-a-Sparta-song territory. It’s one hell of a way to start off the record, however, as it segues immediately into the more Get Up Kid-friendly “Regent’s Court.”

The midway point of “Rules” features “Automatic,” a Jim Suptic-lead song that prominently features a quirky synth tone as the lead instrument; it’s not terrible as it seems a little misplaced. I think that if you shuffled this song next to “The Widow Paris,” it would be easier to digest.

The Get Up Kids 2.0 is just as brash and talented as their “Something to Write Home” counterparts, however, they definitely going to alienate people who fondly and abashedly request “Holiday” and “Action and Action” at shows. Honestly, this is not the direction that I would have seen them going in, but it is welcomed nonetheless. I think the biggest downfall of the album is track arrangement, which has very little to do with the quality of the songs themselves.

These are weird pop songs, but once you get into a couple spins of the album, this is very much the Get Up Kids and that’s kind of what you have to keep in your mind. These dudes aren’t 19 anymore and I wouldn’t expect them to release music that is akin to teenagers anyway.

— Ryan Pangilinan