Get Awkward

Even with song subjects nicked from movies, the only false thing here is the title: Get Awkward my ass. It's extremely difficult to imagine these hyperdrive darlings as anything but fully adept.

BYOP remain blissfully bored by the idea of lyrical or musical subtlety, which is why they're so perfect.

While the band is ferocious and tight, Pearl in particular has attained force-of-nature caliber formidability, not just in the burgeoning mastery of her commanding rapid-fire squeal, but in her frankly sexual gaze and world-devouring disdain for all things not awesome.

Still, the best songs have more than enough energy and creativity to prevent this album from being an Awkward sophomore slump.

Get Awkward is mostly more of the same but with more hooks, more wit, and a hell of a lot more emotion.

[Jemina Pearl's] shrieking self-reliance rings powerful as ever on the Nashville garage-punk quartet's sophomore album.

Get Awkward is relentless, riotous and raw.

This means that even though Get Awkward starts at a frenetic pace and pretty much keeps slapping you about the face for the next half hour--there’s hardly a song that goes above 2-minutes-30--it doesn’t feel like an assault.

A second album every bit as upbeat, funny and furious as their eponymous 2006 debut. [Apr 2008, p.105]

They've managed to inject 15 punk songs with youthful energy and just enough variety to keep things interesting, crafting a goofy, yet determined record.

Let it also be said that Jemima Pearl’s voice has improved in a myriad of ways; throughout Be Awkward, she wails, rally-cries, and (especially on 'Becky') croons with a range of emotions that were bereft in previous recordings. If there’s one thing Be Awkward has in common with BYOP’s first effort, it’s the fact that it runs a bit long.

So even though the songs have great live potential and are manufactured with poppy punk precision, the end product doesn't quite fit the equation. [Winter 2008, p.95]

Thankfully, if anything differentiates the terrific Get Awkward from its hardly inauspicious predecessor, it's that this one may be even less complicated. Whereas the debut made room for actual relationships and a couple of headlong jams, this is a tighter, blunter assault, affording Pearl only just enough room to summarize B-movie plots or super-soak society.

There's plenty of kicks left over, but it tilts the impression of the band. The Teen Beat questionnaires that come in the disc jacket (What's your favorite color? What's your shoe size?) and the shortened tracklist end up emphasizing the nerdiness over the jerkiness.

But no matter, because the tracks that Universal has okayed are the kind of ballsy primal rock that conjures up images of a glorious multicolor three-way between Bikini Kill, the Ramones, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.