The Get Up Kids - Guilt Show
the Get Up Kids have become dilettantes of their own art; seemingly lost in an overwhelming wave of misdirection and desire to appease wanton listeners
Dull. Uninspired. Directionless. Not terms commonly reserved for the Get Up Kids. Partly because their extensive discography, while not on the forefront of the critically praised, appeals to a great number of listeners with a soft spot for music’s emotional refuge. Since their early 7”s, they have celebrated the bittersweet, often cathartic energy that revolved around healing the broken heart. One that lay threadbare and in direct aim of their lyrical montage, painted to great depth by self-effacing lines (“your place is at the heart of what I do everything's for you / every time I run away / it's easier to stay”) and observations of what is lost in distance (“I’ve got pictures to prove I was there / but you don't care”). They were perhaps the words of one, but felt by many.
The Red Letter Day EP, still their most complete and affecting work, echoed with the caustic fangs of sorrow that, in their perfect tuneful reverberation, left an impressive mark of sincerity (although at times described as a little mawkish). Is there a better reflection of resentful lost felt than “Anne Arbour”? The agony was beautiful, and the empathy not lost through the frayed romance. The triumph that followed was simply majestic; Something to Write Home About was the personification of what we all are at times – “out of sight, out of mind, out of reach” – left but the wilting memories with nothing more than frail goodbyes and a postcard. It was a record that spoke to those who spent the waiting by the phone. Built on endless aphorisms of love and lost, songs like “Valentine” and “Out of Reach” were rich in emotional appeal. While the Get Up Kids were not the architects of this tender-laden genre, they were one of the select few who propelled it into the many heart-shaped boxes of music’s thin-skinned aftertaste. As the lush harmony of “I’ll Catch You” faded away, there was certain assurance that their unkempt adoration would never follow.
Such a collection would have needed either a greater successor, or a shift in direction to lessen the temptation of resting on laurels and accomplishment. And how often it is that one finds the difficulty in writing with heightened poignancy rests not in the initial plunge, but the falling thereafter; searching for similar ground and radiance. So they did – fall that is. The new musical horizons On A Wire featured proved that maybe the Get Up Kids weren’t ready for such a change in direction; the listeners certainly weren’t. The grainy scope and emphasis on more unrefined textures was possibly the only way to demonstrate growth in such curbed ambiance. Gone amidst their new found bearing was the graceful sentimentality that had become the cornerstone of their sound; and as the music fought for recognition the allure grew dispassionate.
How do you again achieve that emotive past? For the Get Up Kids perhaps, it is fairly obvious. Parallels to Something to Write Home About need to be retraced, and as frustrating as it must be for a musician to have to once again trundle down a beaten path, these are but the few options for those seeking adoration amongst a disappointed audience. The landscape itself has changed however, and in the years since their fateful album much of the surrounding vistas have blossomed (or overpopulated) into a patchy, often hazy scene of never-should-haves and really-never-should-haves. As Guilt Showseems to so eagerly display; they have all but forgotten the dusty backlots of On A Wireand have rediscovered the use of more stable rock-entangled-pop characteristics. Yet as they bungle through these thirteen songs, it is clear they are not so keen on giving up their desire to earn musical respect. And for the first time, a Get Up Kids album can be summed up simply as dull, uninspired and directionless.
From the laid back Brit-pop apostrophes of “Holy Roman” (sounding plenty like they’ve been listening to The Coral or Porcupine-era Echo & the Bunnymen) to the garish chirpiness of “In Your Sea” (kitschy summertime AM radio castoff), there seems to be great affliction in focusing on a distinct approach. Instead, most of Guilt Show feels like a band trying their best to sound as relevant as possible. The incredibly theatrical “Is There A Way Out” is a lesson of torment, carved in gloomy progressive dreadfulness while “Never Be Alone” is very much equal in drag to the On A Wire track “Walking On A Wire.”
The instances where they do tread on familiar sounds seem at times overly effusive. “How Long Is Too Long?” and “Man Of Conviction” would have fit nicely with their earlier work, but the latter is clumsy; replete with hand-claps and a trailing piano line that screams confusion. “Martyr Me” (and maybe to some extent “Sympathy”) is the album’s lone moment of engaging complexity. Most similar in its composition to “Red Letter Day” and “Mass Pike”, it is a song phosphorescent with the gleam of earnest melancholy; finally resuming the sense of moving. It is however, a wonder how the rest of the songs are so lacking in any real tension, richness or profundity. The lyrics, once rife with searing piquancy, are now devoid of any lasting characteristics. Witness the choral aloofness of “Never Be Alone”; “Ohhhhhhhhhh / That’s just the way we go / No matter how the dice didn't roll / You’ll never be alone” – not exactly “I still wear your heart around my throat.”
This is a scary place to be, for both listener and band – the visible path traced post-Something To Write Home About is a distinct nosedive into forgettable. It says plenty that the New Amsterdams’ Worse for the Wear is endlessly better than Guilt Show. In essence, the Get Up Kids have become dilettantes of their own art; seemingly lost in an overwhelming wave of misdirection and desire to appease wanton listeners. The underlining sentiment that resides here is an unmistakable lack of sincerity; everything the title purports it to be. And perhaps they could search through their own words to find the hollow cries of “start over, start over”, but it is very much clear, they wouldn’t know where to begin.
(Vagrant Records)