Tennessee Rock Succeeds With Final EP

It’s easy to bemoan the split of Be Your Own Pet after listening to Get Damaged. The band manages to infuse an impressive amount of energy into scarcely six minutes of audio, which makes it hard to believe that the act doesn’t have any life left. But the facts are the facts, and it’s more than likely that Get Damaged is the last release anyone will see from Be Your Own Pet.

Made up of tracks that were left off of BYOP’s Get Awkward LP, the release of Get Damaged did not come without some drama. Universal, who released the album, decided the tracks were too violent for inclusion with the LP, so BYOP’s UK label XL released the three tracks as an EP. Some critics seem to think that the decision was motivated by Universal’s desire to market the album to as many 15 year-olds with side-bangs and heavy eyeliner as possible, with little regard to the album itself, and those critics are probably right.

As a result, Get Damaged doesn’t come off as an EP so much as a premature ejaculation. Though the songs on Damaged are pretty good jaunts about boredom and high school, it’s hard to cover up the fact that XL is just trying to clean up Universal’s money-grubbing mess here, and get the songs to the people. ‘Becky’ for instance, a beguiling track that unquestionably would’ve made Get Awkward a better piece of work, becomes part of an incomplete fixation floating around in musical space because of its violent lyrics. Fact is, despite the quality of the songs, Get Damaged may only be right-minded effort to make up for the American money machine and stands as a young bands final bow and fuck-you.

Matthew Richardson