Get Awkward

We Say...

Review by Frances Morgan

If youthful Tennessee garage-rockers Be Your Own Pet have a back story straight out of a cult movie — photogenic offspring of music industry personnel who formed in 2003 to instant acclaim and the endorsement of Thurston Moore — their second album, Get Awkward, finds them knocking out the tunes to match their reputation.

Be Your Own Pet’s debut came packed with short, sharp blasts of hedonistic punk-pop whose gritty guitars rubbed up against knowing lyrics and wryly employed pop hooks. It was killer party music for house shows and scuzzy basements. Get Awkward sees the band embrace those bigger stages with tracks that are as catchy as they are ferocious, marrying punk with power-pop and cartoonish alt-rock. Jemima Pearl Abegg’s vocals take the lead; she alternates sugary snarls and feral screams with pure, urgent high notes.

As Blondie took inspiration from the pop culture of the 1950s and 1960s, Be Your Own Pet fetishize the decade of their birth: the 1980s. Get Awkward’s subject matter — partying, beer, drugs, food fights, break-ups, more partying — present a slice of teenage life straight out of a high school TV series. Homicidal girl-group parody “Becky” adds a further twist of intertextuality — like the Black Lips, Be Your Own Pet’s quirky take on '60s pop is just as informed by '80s versions of the same.

It's worth noting that there’s a darkness to songs like “Super Soaked,” “Black Hole” and “What’s Your Damage” that places BYOP among 2008’s current crop of young hardcore and grunge-influenced bands (i.e. Times New Viking, Pissed Jeans and No Age). Jonas Stein’s angular guitar on “Blow Your Mind” hints at Goo-era Sonic Youth; it’ll be interesting to see whether he and his band can navigate between rock songwriting and noisy experimentation with the same ease as their patrons.