Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward

Genre rock Publisher Ecstatic Peace External Links Be Your Own Pet Website

This was one of my most anticipated albums of the early part of 2008. After being enthralled by their self-titled debut two years ago, I was really anxious to see where these four kids from Nashville were headed next. Their Technicolor blend of spastic energy, acidic sarcasm, and punk spirit was the perfect antidote to the monochromatic indie rock I had been filling my ears with. It was refreshing to hear a band full of actual teenagers throwing all of their youthful exuberance into two-minute bursts of “don’t give a fuck” candy-coated hand grenades. Especially thrilling was lead singer Jemina Pearl and her firecracker delivery that rolled Karen O and Iggy Pop into one snarling, manic package.

As much as I loved that debut, and even though I couldn’t wait to hear more material, I was a bit hesitant about this follow-up. How would two years of aging affect a sound so rooted in adolescent boredom and frustration? Were they going to ditch the spit and snarl for a set of broken-hearted acoustic ballads? Of course not, but the fear of some sort of lost edge as the kids slid closer to becoming jaded twenty-somethings weighed on my mind. Turns out that I needn’t have worried, the Be Your Own Pet that I had grown to adore didn’t go anywhere. In fact, it seems like they may have regressed even further into their inner childhood, crashing pizza parties and smashing birthday cakes as they blow through another set of convulsive rockers.

Whether name-checking Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Robocop or starting food fights and partying in the graveyard, BYOP manage to keep up the sugar rush intensity that makes them so compelling. Pearl still squeals and shrieks like the slightly off-balanced girl you can’t quite figure out, but crush on anyway, while guitarist Jonas Stein holds it all together with his buzzsaw riffs that propel her along. Personality and delivery can only take a ferocious frontwoman so far, she needs a band that can match her pound for hyperactive pound – and luckily she’s got it.

Living up to the bar set by the last album is a decent start, but it’s the greater emphasis on pop melodies that shows the band’s progression. Lead single “The Kelly Affair” is dangerously catchy, thanks to a killer chorus filled with handclaps and a spiraling guitar riff, but it is only one of the many hooks that will be spinning around your head before the album finishes its’ first spin. Anybody who can make it through “Zombie Graveyard Party!” and not find themselves shouting along with “life is lame, so let me eat your brain” is obviously a person that hates both music and fun. This is exactly the strong step forward this young band needed to take and should help convince some of the doubters who dismissed them as being a little too tuneless the first time around.

The album isn’t entirely fun and irreverence though, it’s the more universal human touches that demonstrate Pearl’s continued growth as a songwriter and lend the album a little levity. Nearly everyone who listens, young and old alike, can relate to her fears about turning twenty and leaving the reckless teenage life behind and “becoming part of society”. And, lest we forget that she is a teenage girl underneath the hard exterior, she still obsesses over the unrequited loves in her life, good (“Heart Throb”) and bad (“Twisted Nerve”). Luckily for us, she knows that the easiest way to move on is to throw caution to the wind and be a kid again, completely unafraid to make a mess and fuck things up.

And really, that’s what makes Be Your Own Pet such an exciting band in the first place – that willingness to buck the trends and do their own thing. To throw out everything they’ve got with the kind of reckless abandon that intimidates musicians and artists twice their age. Their debut album was fresh and exciting, but now that they are maturing as a band and learning how to wield a powerful melody – they’ve gone from merely good to scary good. I can’t wait to hear how they handle the “difficult” third album, it surely won’t be boring.