{"id":28407,"date":"2013-06-11T12:01:25","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T12:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-real-friends-put-yourself-back\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T15:17:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T15:17:49","slug":"album-review-real-friends-put-yourself-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/album-review-real-friends-put-yourself-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Real Friends &#8211; Put Yourself Back Together EP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/tumblr_inline_mo4rflIp3l1qztcot.jpg\" title=\"\">Despite having only a handful of EP\u2019s under their belt, Chicago pop punk outfit <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> have already amassed a cult following. Similar to The Story So Far, Handguns and the like, <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> profess to deliver &lsquo;sad songs, mean songs and Midwest living.&rsquo; Their last release, <em>\u2018Three Songs About The Past Year Of My Life,<\/em>\u2019 a three-track gap filler between full-length EP\u2019s, continued their trend of delivering tight, catchy songs. In short, <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> are the kind of band that makes you want to shout every line while vigorously jabbing your finger in the air.<\/p>\n<p>Latest release<em> \u2018Put Yourself Back Together,\u2019<\/em> doesn\u2019t buck the trend, in fact it\u2019s near identical to 2012\u2019s <em>\u2018Everyone That Dragged You Here.\u2019<\/em> <strong>Real Friends&rsquo;<\/strong> newest EP is seven tracks of slick pop punk, with a slower number thrown in to round things off.<!-- more --><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2018Late Nights in My Car,\u2019<\/em> <em>\u2018Skin Deep\u2019<\/em> (with its nod to Jimmy Eat World) and <em>\u2018Dead\u2019<\/em> are all enjoyable, memorable efforts, and while the reworked version of <em>\u2018Dirty Water\u2019<\/em> seems superfluous, it\u2019s by no means bad. Break up anthem <em>\u2018Lost Boy\u2019<\/em> combines self-hatred and anger in equal measures while <em>\u2018Old And All Alone\u2019<\/em> is a brilliantly venomous attack on an ex, including lines like <em>\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t know a good thing even if it slapped the makeup right off your face.\u201d<\/em> Ouch!<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, closer <em>\u2018I\u2019ve Given Up On You\u2019<\/em> is a standard acoustic number, which simply rehashes clique pop punk tropes (giving up, not being able to listen to the same songs anymore, 4am). It\u2019s by no means bad, just predictable, and ends the EP on a slight downer.<\/p>\n<p>However despite its likeability there is a glaring issue with <em>\u2018Put Yourself Back Together\u2019<\/em> &#8211; repetition. Some pop punk bands use reoccurring motifs in their songs, and when done well (i.e &ldquo;I\u2019m not sad anymore&rdquo;) it can be a great. <strong>Real Friends<\/strong>\u2019 motif of &rsquo;<em>sleepy eyes and bony knees&rsquo;<\/em>\u00a0has popped up across all their releases and evolved into the bands signature. However over the course of <em>\u2018Put Yourself Back Together,\u2019<\/em> <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> slam you over the head with it, mentioning one or the other thirteen times over the twenty-minute span of the EP. It\u2019s heavy-handed, distracting and at points, irritating.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I\u2019m being fussy, but sleepy eyes and bony knees aside, despite this being a solid EP, I expected more from <strong>Real Friends<\/strong>. I didn\u2019t expect just another good effort, I assumed <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> would knock it out of the ball park, but instead they\u2019ve delivered more of the same.<em> \u2018Put Yourself Back Together\u2019<\/em> is by no means bad, but with an extra push they could evolve from a good band to a great one. In the meantime, this is the perfect summer listen while we await their eventual full length. Keep it up <strong>Real Friends<\/strong>; just give the sleepy eyes and bony knees a rest next time.<\/p>\n<p>3.5\/5<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8216;Put Yourself Back Together\u2019<\/em> by <strong>Real Friends<\/strong> is out now on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/realfriends.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real Friends<\/strong> links: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/realfriendsband\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>|<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realfriendsband\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a>|<a href=\"http:\/\/realfriends.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bandcamp<\/a>|<a href=\"http:\/\/realfriendsband.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tumblr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Words by Jay Sullivan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite having only a handful of EP\u2019s under their belt, Chicago pop punk outfit Real Friends have already amassed a cult following. Similar to The Story So Far, Handguns and the like, Real Friends profess to deliver &lsquo;sad songs, mean songs and Midwest living.&rsquo; Their last release, \u2018Three Songs About The Past Year Of My [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8181],"tags":[5879,12459,1873],"class_list":["post-28407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-post","tag-album-reviews","tag-put-yourself-back-together-ep","tag-real-friends"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Album Review: Real Friends - Put Yourself Back Together EP - Already Heard Staging<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Despite having only a handful of EP\u2019s under their belt, Chicago pop punk outfit Real Friends have already amassed a cult following. 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