The Get Up Kids: On A Wire : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The great thing about emo is also the great thing about punk: Most of its bands split up before they're boring, and the best of the rest don't stop growing. After 1999's Something to Write Home About put the Get Up Kids on tours with Weezer and Green Day, this Kansas City, Missouri, quintet teamed with longtime alt-rock producer Scott Litt to turn down the roaring guitars that formed the basis of -- and sometimes limited -- their sound.

As a result, On a Wire quivers with the anxieties that must have arisen as the Get Up Kids left behind what originally made them. Straining vocals, racing tempos and walls of distortion give way to softer singing, spacious guitars and prominent keyboards. Songs such as "Let the Reigns [sic] Go Loose" suggest Litt's prior work with R.E.M. But mostly, the Get Up Kids dig deeper into themselves. What they find is often subtle, less visceral but far more tender.

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 898 - June 20, 2002)