Best Kind of Mess

Despite their goth-punk looks, Utah hard rockers Get Scared owe more to bands like Breaking Benjamin, Panic! At the Disco, and Good Charlotte than they do the Misfits or the Cure. The band’s major-label debut, Best Kind of Mess, bristles with the usual, post-hardcore/emo-punk trinity of heartbreak, anger, and social (as in high school) injustice, but there’s an undercurrent of mischievous whimsy that runs throughout the album that suggests a steady diet of White Zombie and Buckcherry amidst all of the Nine Inch Nails and Korn. Tightly wound, punchy, and explosive in all of the right places, songs like “Voodoo,” “Whore,” and “Screaming,” can’t figure out if they want to be Warped Tour anthems, strip club walk-ons, or power pop gems, which is actually kind of refreshing, and the choruses on MTV-ready slabs of sad like “Screaming” and “Mess” have the kind of expansive, soaring melodies that almost diffuse the cloud of gloom sent up by the lyrics. It’s certainly not groundbreaking stuff, but there’s enough going on here to warrant keeping a mascara-caked eye on Get Scared, as unlike some of their contemporaries, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, even if it is just a train.