Artist: Get Up & Go

Artist: Get Up & Go

Links: https://www.facebook.com/GetUpAndGoBand

http://getupandgo.bandcamp.com/

There are approximately 8,345 varieties of punk music. Okay I made that up; there might be only a tenth of that. But you literally cannot count them (and still be punk). So you punkers shouldn't be surprised that we laypeople are content to learn the easiest of labels, which let us know whether we'll be hearing the bouncy Green Day/Blink-182 that got famous during our lifetime, or the angry Sex Pistols stuff we heard in passing during VH1 commercials. The pop-punk label was an adequate descriptive. But since the term is apparently pejorative, “melodic punk” is being used instead. (After all, what is pop if not melodic?)

For whatever reason, the indie press doesn't fawn over melodic punk as it does with “twee” pop, with which it shares similarities. They're both a bit silly, when not fetishizing objects of youth. The difference being: the items revered. Twee is the hand-knitted doily that great-grandma finishes the day she dies. And pop-punk is the scammed beer you accidentally spill on it when the parents leave to visit her grave. As for the music, twee is defined by addition. “Let's add an old-timey instrument like a glockenspiel to normal sounding music.” Punk would rather discard everything that's extraneous, in service to the song. And it's the hardest thing to do: retain song-writing self-control (especially while singing about excess). And that's why pop/melodic punk is genetically superior.

Musically speaking, melodic punk bands change on a dime. Perhaps the bands/audiences have internet-addled attention spans; or have just been treated like they do by marketing/programming execs. Regardless (and fortunately for us), NOFX set this high bar long ago, namely the three-minute opus, and pop-punkers will either die or rise to the challenge. More notably than the “have to,” these bands impress me because they “can.” Chefs don't go all 18 courses on us, unless they have three-Michelin-star-caliber chops. And boy does Get Up & Go got chops.

The best of the bunch is “The Need to Run,” with its introductory drum-less diet of ska guitar and superb vocal phrasing (“There’s a panic that’s been choking on my life as I age / It’s catching up and creepin’ in like a jihadist crusade”), song-stop/starting rhythm section, and fill-laden drums racing with frenetic guitar distortion. But it's the litany of songwriting flourishes – a rhythmic whipsaw at :53 (which works in conjunction with, “I’m feeling slower every day”) followed by a bass guitar climbing up and down the ska chord charts (at 1:12) – that supply the song with a bridge par excellence.

Also exemplary: the ending of “The Teacher Who Loved Me,” which goes from double-time to half-time in 10 seconds flat (at 1:12); as well as Impeller's consistently on-point harmonies, e.g. 1:01 of “Socialite” (itself, a much appreciated take-down of vicarious viewers keeping reality TV alive well into its third decade of cultural dominance).

In short, Impeller is proof positive: Get Up & Go is to melodic punk what Grant Achatz is to molecular gastronomy. Modern masters. Hating babies. (Okay, I made that last part up.)

*** The author of this review, Matthew Hall, plays the primo for the following band: http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8