There was a period of time around the release of their first EP where I had a pretty pronounced fixation on The Get Up Kids. I guess that probably it was 1996, when I was just getting my feet wet on how taxing it could be to be a guy in his 20s dating in Manhattan. As such, emo bands proved to be chicken soup for the sideburned soul. The following decade found my interest waning. The addition of an egocentric keyboard dude and a desultory late period tour riding the coattails of the mighty Superchunk put the band lower and lower in my estimation as the years passed. It became pretty obvious as the band neared implosion that they really disliked each other and that Matt considered himself the band.
Cue a break-up, a bunch of side projects, then the inevitable cash-in reunion. There was a live record and weak DVD released, then a not especially good EP and a Daytrotter session. 2011 finds the band continuing the trend by dropping a self-released average record called There Are Rules. I wouldn't buy it, but maybe you're one of the douches who shit all over Superchunk and want to hearken back to your edgier days. There are rules, and one of them is that you should probably release a good record if you'd like to reclaim your previous stature. While Bob Weston tries his hardest, I expect that he's currently trying to get his hands clean after the spate of turd-polishing that it took to get this record out. Way too many keyboard-driven songs, way too few hooks. This is not a recipe for anything that JS-NYC can recommend.
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