Album Review: The Get Up Kids – “Kicker EP”

The Get Up Kids are no longer kids. Having gotten their start in the Midwest emo scene of the mid-‘90s, they’ve been in the game for over 20 years—long enough to have had two hiatuses. Now they’re back and kicking, though, as is evidenced by their appropriately named new EP Kicker. Thankfully, today’s Get Up Kids are far from a weaker facsimile of their former selves; they’re raw, loud, and honest, packing lots of energy into these 13 minutes of music.

“Maybe,” the first track on the album, immediately lets you know that the band’s not holding back with some drum beats and glitchy guitar sounds. A few moments later, the repetition of a keyboard note and some purposeful tambourine pounding establish the particular kind of major-key urgency that the song is going to deliver. When Matt Pryor jumps in with vocals, singing about the “same fight as yesterday,” he sets the tone for an EP packed with lyrics that casually confront malaise. While his delivery and range never quite recreate the bending earnestness of Four Minute Mile classics like “Coming Clean” and “Stay Gold Ponyboy”, he definitely sounds definitive enough to make you believe him.

In a similar fashion, the next song, “Better This Way,” is musically upbeat but lyrically gritty. It’s best listened to on headphones; the tension in the track is stronger when the guitar and percussion in the intro can arrive militantly into different ears. Here, the band grapples with the uncertainty of the future while making you want to bob your head to the beat. The general effect is like that of a refreshing, but pensive bike ride around town. The chorus—“If you need me I’ll be here/But if you wanna disappear it would be wrong to say/I guess some things are better this way”—sheds light on the truth that nuance means everything when it comes to relationships.

“I’m Sorry” is three minutes and twelve seconds of rough-and-tumble, fast-paced pop punk goodness. Here, Pryor shows some more of his vocal range, backed by harmonies, subtle synths, and rollicking drum beats. Lyrics like “I never wanna miss your birthday parties” pack meaning into a few sincere syllables at a time. Sure, it may be a little redundant with its constant repetition of the title phrase—but oh well. It’s fun and well-done, the best track on the EP to blast in the car.

“My Own Reflection” is a natural closer to the album. The song starts out simply, with the bleakly sung lyric “It’s hard enough to stay awake.” Then, layer by layer, instrumentation is added in a buildup to the chorus. As with the other tracks, piano and synths are used to give the song a bit of a sun-basked feel, despite its themes of disquietude.

If the album has one weak point, it’s the lyrics. Previous albums like Four Minute Mile and Something to Write Home About had a sense of novelty that was hard to miss. Sometimes that novelty took the form of titles like “I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel,” which was pulled directly from the dialogue of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Other times, it shone through phrases like “Say goodnight, mean goodbye,” which said a lot in a few syllables. Kicker has has some of these; they’re just fewer and farther between. Still, it would be absurd to say that the songs sound contrived.

All in all, Kicker is a solid introduction to the grown-up version of the Kids the punk world has known and loved. By summoning the sound of their golden days, they’ve created something that both new and old fans will enjoy rocking out to.