The All American Rejects - Kids in the Street

Stillwater, Oklahoma's reigning pop-punk kings The All American Rejects have returned with their all new studio effort, Kids in the Street. The follow up to 2008's When The World Comes Down finds the rock group maturing immensely from their previous efforts and aims to present the band in a much different light than before and is one that is more mature and dabbles in more diverse instrumentation that allows them to grow along with their listening audience.

The disc opens up with "Someday's Gone" a simple, mid-tempo tune that gives you a peek inside lead singer Tyson Ritter's loud and booming vocal presence that is one of the band's hallmarks and one of their identifiable characteristics that have defined them for the better half of a decade now. My favorite song off the new release is the disc's breezy first single, "Beekeeper's Daughter" complete with horns and guitarist Nick Wheeler's intricate playing style that allows the song to stand out from among all the rest featured here and is one that you'll best remember from the album. "Heartbeat Slowing Down" is much like the title of the song and is a drastically reduced number in tempo and sees Tyson's vocals moving down to a breathy whisper that shows off his versatility as a capable frontman. "Walk Over Me" is an upbeat, catchy tune that features a steady melodic blast and gets the energy back up and flowing again and is the perfect song to start off any kind of party you might be having on the weekends. "Out The Door" features a terrific guitar lick from Nick and manages to keep the audience's attention squarely focused on this particular track as the album trudges along.

We head along to the disc's second half where we come across "Bleed Into Your Mind", an eerie, mysterious tune that has a strange aura emanating strongly around it and doesn't quite fit in with the other tracks featured here. "Affection" starts out much the same way and is a very bland, uninspired track that doesn't add anything particularly useful to the mix here and just comes across as being a tad bit lackadaisical. The disc begins to close out on "I For You" an acoustic based ballad that is a nice departure form the subpar tracks that we previously encountered and manages to get back on track with a heartfelt and emotional ballad that shows us the softer side of the group and Tyson's vocals showing some remarkable depth here. The disc concludes on "Drown Next To Me", a solid track that manages to tie up all the loose ends and present a quick, overall synopsis of the different sounds that we've encountered on the disc and how they interrelate to one another if applicable. Out of all the bands I've listened to, The All American Rejects have been the band that has evolved the most consistently over the years and haven't felt the need to revert back to their original sound that made them famous. It's hard for most music listeners to adapt to change with their favorite artists over the years, which is perfectly understandable. But if artists don't evolve and change, how will the fans evolve and change themselves?

To sum it all up, a solid and mediocre effort here from The All American Rejects, who continue to travel up the musical pedestal of evolution and have improved in some areas, but they need some work on in different avenues that will make them a well rounded band in the process.

                                                                                                                                Album Score: 3/5

Track Listing:

1. Someday's Gone
2. Beekeeper's Daughter
3. Fast & Slow
4. Heartbeat Slowing Down
5. Walk Over Me
6. Out the Door
7. Kids in the Street
8. Bleed Into Your Mind
9. Gonzo
10. Affection
11. I For You
12. Drown Next To Me