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Entertainment Weekly

• "Dancing around like a maniac to their bouncy rhythms and singing their quirky lyrics ..."

  • Download This: Chin Up Chin Up Chicago indie-rockers Chin Up Chin Up have written a song that points out the pitfalls of living dangerously: ''We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skycrapers.'' Words to live by. Because if you live like a skyscraper, you could end up with ''paralyzed teeth and trial-sized feet,'' as the lyrics say. Dancing around like a maniac to their bouncy rhythms and singing their quirky lyrics will help to ward off the paralysis; try some lifts for the tiny feet.

Pitchfork

• "...it reaffirms what many heard on We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers: a poppy spin on a familiar sound..."

  • Rating: 7.0 This isn't the follow-up to Chin Up Chin Up's promising debut, but a reprint of their first EP with the addition of two remixes, an acoustic version of "Falcons and Vulcans", and a video. Hearing it now, it obviously sounds like a first step, but it reaffirms what many heard on We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers: a poppy spin on a familiar sound, a singer still finding his voice, and a band with a great deal of potential. The original version of "Collide the Tide" opens the EP (it was re-recorded for their full-length), and while the hand-muted guitar scratches and funk rhythms wedged between jangly choruses weren't exactly revelatory on either version, the chords pull a surprisingly tender switch beneath Jeremy Bolan's hushed vocals, and this version's rhythm flows a little more naturally, like post-rock with a steady pop pulse underneath instead of just playing bait-and-switch with genre. The EP doesn't have half of the varied instrumentation of their following full-length, so tracks like "Fuck You, Elton John" and "For All the Tanning Salons in Texas" fall a bit flat. "Elton John" could have been more successful if its climax didn't depend on Bolan's ability to belt out his vocals, and he strains when outside of the hoarse, near-whispered style he relies on. The band are still toying with ideas here, and "Tanning Salons" gets by on galloping guitar lines that would suffice for an instrumental, but sound gray and flat in the context of a pop song. However, there is some variation here. "The Soccer Mom Gets Her Fix" winds 80s keyboards around its unpredictable rhythms. "I'm Not Asking for a Tennis Bracelet" uses a theremin as its anchoring melody (played by fellow Chicagoan Devin Davis), and grows progressively calmer over the many permutations of winding guitar notes and layered vocals. "Pillage the Village" is an average performance that nonetheless builds nicely, and the minimal one-note keyboards hint at the Cure influence that was expanded upon on We Should Have Never Lived... The remix of "We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers" is reverent to the original, borrowing all the right segments and stretching the wistful emotions at the heart of the track. Unfortunately, the new beat is average and tepid IDM fare-- so close, and yet so far. The remix of "The Architect has a Gun" by Ronald Simmons/Gene McDonald (aka Tim Kinsella) leans too far in the other direction, taking the originals's elated vocal performance and twisting it into low, creepy choirs and buzzing hives, but it's neither a very daring nor memorable sound. "Falconz and Vulcanz", however, translates surprisingly well in an acoustic setting, revealing richly melodic guitar work. Despite their ponderous song titles and instrumentation, Chin Up Chin Up were already reaching towards concise pop songs on their debut EP. The best songs here straddle the line between melodic indie and post-rock, and if the band could use the merits of both, balance technical ability and instrumental tension-and-release with sharp hooks, they'd have boundless potential for great future records. Listening to the varied arrangements and melodies of We Should Have Never Lived... after hearing this EP makes it sound all the more possible. I can't wait to hear what they do next.

Pitchfork

• "There's no time to rest when you're a promising new indie rock band..."

  • There's no time to rest when you're a promising new indie rock band, and Chin Up Chin Up are raring to go. OK, so we're cheating a little by calling them new-- they're sort of like, Grammy Best New Artist-new, rather than new-new. They've been around since the turn of the millennium, when they released an eponymous six-track EP. It's long since out of print, but being the fine Chicagoans that they are, the band will be re-releasing it this summer via a new record label called, um, Record Label. No, really, and it gets better: Chin Up Chin Up are also heading back into the studio to record new tracks for the EP's encore edition. Meanwhile, we're gonna get some more shows out of them, too. Fresh off of a 20,000 mile, 39-date tour with Make Believe in support of their infectiously catchy art-pop debut, We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers, Chin Up Chin Up have more shows lined up this spring, as they head out with Appleseed Cast.

Viceland.com

• "The only time I’ve ever felt dangerously stupid in my life was when I took pre-calc as a junior in high school."

  • The only time I’ve ever felt dangerously stupid in my life was when I took pre-calc as a junior in high school. I just couldn’t even begin to get my head around that shit, and I specifically remember this one day I found myself sitting in the back copying off this fucking kid named Emecka who I normally wouldn’t have even talked to for fear that whatever learning disability he had was contagious. It was one of the most distinct ‘what the fuck am I doing with my life’ moments I had back then. Anyway, I think that’s why I never ‘got’ math rock either. It was just too much for me, and sure it was pretty cool, but I couldn’t understand why. Chin Up Chin Up are math rock for kids like me. You get the distinct feeling that there is one kid in this band who majored in English or something in college, and when the nerds are going nuts at practice he’s the one reigning them in, being all ‘yeah yeah, that’s pretty intricate dude, but melodies and a linear progression are fun sometimes too.’ I love that guy and this album

Transform

• "Infectious grooves with a quirky sensibility..."

  • It’s kind of hard to simply listen to a band sometimes. That sounds stupid to say, because if you don’t listen to a band what do you do with them? What I mean by “listen” is really listen: ears tuned in, attention tightly wound around the beat, the rhythm, the melody, the very essence of what is weaved together. It’s active listening that is truly hard to do. To internalize and care enough to hear what the artists are really trying to do. Why is it so hard? Because it requires more than just your ears, it requires the desire to actually go inside the music. But sometimes it’s not so hard. Sometimes a band makes it easy. Sometimes, rarely, a band just takes you there. Chi-town heroes Chin Up Chin Up make you really “listen” effortlessly. Infectious grooves with a quirky sensibility characterize much of We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers. Shoegazing one minute, pop-hooking you at another, the band really likes to take its time to settle into their firm grasp on your shirt collar. There’s a Wrens quality to them, but a little more subversive than the power punky avant-garde pop of the boys from Secaucus, NJ. It’s not aggressively grabbing either, it’s just intense and soothing. Full of surprises and changes you can’t call strange or obvious, each track reminds you of why you want to keep listening. Keys, guitars, percussions, and bass, it’s a formula that – when used properly – comes off well. And in an ‘80s-ish, slightly new wave fashion, Chin Up Chin Up use the formula perfectly. Based on titles alone, you get a sense of their optimism and humor. “Get Me Off This Fucking Island,” “Why is My Sleeping Bag a Ghetto Muppet,” and “The Architect Has a Gun”… I mean really, you can’t pin the pretentious medal on these guys with titles like that. Needless to say, the lyrical content denotes that same sense of lightheartedness and forward movement. But what is most impressive is their perseverance. If bands could gain support and fans on courage alone, then Chin Up Chin Up should garner thousands. Having lost one of the original members in a car accident (bassist Chris Saathoff), the band pushed through, finished their album solidly, and girded their loins for touring. They remain positive and forward moving. And while I can’t say too much else about Chin Up Chin Up, having never seen them live, the album’s production quality implies they are an alluring, tight, and fluidly functioning band. Something tells me that the hold on my attention that they wield will definitely remain firm.

Pitchfork

• "a glimpse of how much more Chin Up Chin Up are capable of"

  • Rating: 7.6 // Chin Up Chin Up's debut record had a back story before it was even completed; it's not a behind-the-music tabloid tale, but a genuine tragedy: In February 2004, the members of Chin Up Chin Up had just finished mixing demos for We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers, their first full-length, and attended a show at Chicago venue the Empty Bottle. A little after 1 a.m. on Valentine's Day morning, bassist Chris Saathoff ducked out of the club with his girlfriend. The couple crossed a neighboring intersection as an SUV sped toward them, striking Saathoff as he pushed his girlfriend to safety. The driver never stopped, and Saathoff was dragged for nearly two blocks. The 26-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. After that, the band "all hung out together more than we hung out as a band," according to singer Jeremy Bolen. "We didn't think about music for a long time." However, after some encouraging from Saathoff's own parents and a few benefit shows at the Empty Bottle, the band were ready to continue, and completed the album while keeping as much of Saathoff's bass parts on it as possible. The only track recorded afterward, album closer "All My Hammocks are Dying", has no bass at all. Chin Up Chin Up's sound owes much to artists like 90 Day Men, June of 44, Slint, and Tortoise; the album's busy guitar parts, xylophones, and unwieldy song titles all scream math-rock. Yet on this record, the band sound like they're growing out of and beyond that scene. You can hear it clearly on the title track, which opens with swirling keyboards and an acapella vocal before the fastest rhythm of the album takes hold, which the band stops and starts around moody interludes and strange group harmonies. Elsewhere, a thumping post-rock intro falls away while the band gets all Rapture on the verses of "Collide the Tide" (re-recorded from their self-titled EP, this version has busier production and is a little stiffer) with phased synthesizers and hand-muted guitar scrapes. The band's kitchen-sink approach its arrangements threatens to overcome its melodies, but the tracks are saved by CUCU's grasp of tension and release as well as their memorable hooks. And tracks like "Collide the Tide" and the Modest-Mouse-ish rave-up "All My Hammocks Are Dying," We Should Have Never... reveal a band with its eyes looking in a few different directions. The record's big obstacle is Bolen's vocal delivery. His voice doesn't sound "bad" so much "forced," with vocals sung in hushed, scratchy tone that seems either insecure or like a misguided attempt at sounding cool. Fortunately, he doesn't always sing in such an affected whisper. There are occasions, like on the album's other big stand-out "Virginia Don't Drown", where Bolen reaches for the notes in a normal voice while the band breaks into a note-perfect Cure imitation behind him. Moments like this feel like cracking a window on the album's claustrophobic arrangements, and give a glimpse of how much more Chin Up Chin Up are capable of.

Lost At Sea

• "...a rolling affair, steadily moving along in milky, dreamy tones."

  • There are few things more difficult than giving up one’s idealism. Having conversations with older people, more knowledgeable of the world and its cavernous drops, can make you face some harsh realities about injustice and inevitability. You don’t initially want to believe, but you know these things are true; you can gradually feel some naiveté slipping away, and it’s hard. This movement is entirely fitting in light of the Chin Up Chin Up’s recent plight. They lost their bassist, Chris Saathoff, on Valentine’s Eve 2004, to an underage drunk driver. While it is wholly inappropriate to boil the band’s handiwork down to the repercussions of that event, thematically it touches on loss and gratitude, intimacy, grief and growth. The sincerity of these feelings we can all appreciate, and their experiences color the album a worthy, sunlit gray. We Should Never Have Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers is a rolling affair, steadily moving along in milky, dreamy tones. Clarity comes with their undeniable focus, as tracks boil over with great attention, and bright, upbeat inclinations are cautiously, arduously, left behind. Playing on the lovely, intricate securities of bands like the Velvet Teen, Archers of Loaf and early Death Cab for Cutie, there’s thoughtfulness, attention to detail and fresh eyes, fit to find awe in the everyday. On the whole, this is an album of hopefulness that loses itself with age; it becomes slightly hardened, even as its surroundings remain beautiful. It’s surprising how much of this album is heartened, even grateful, in light of all that has occurred among friends, but perhaps it is their loss that makes them cling so fiercely to the more beautiful things. The opener, “Why Is My Sleeping Bag a Ghetto Muppet?,” is simply fantastic. It has a sweeping, lovesick piano, and is content in building and repeating its complex patterns, making itself comfortable. The hushed vocals establish themselves immediately at the center of the band’s sound, and create a personal feel – homebound, yet still awakened by what is seen out of the window. In kind, the following title track is a bobbling, delicate piece. It has an understated grandeur and emotional caution, like handling fine antiques with clumsy fingertips. It feels like Broken Social Scene in places, just as internally invigorating. “Virginia, Don’t Drown” cribs from Built to Spill and unlikely hotshots Modest Mouse with its playful guitars, strung up and down like yo-yos, crashing and connecting with quirky rapport. There’s even a little faux-funk dance step to “Collide the Tide” to go step for step with their Mousey compatriots, and it all succeeds in a loveable, overwhelmed way. Despite its title, “Get Me Off this Fucking Island” is perhaps the most optimistic affair within, victorious and high, resounding with triumph and pride. On the other hand, the closer, “All My Hammocks are Dying” is the only track completed without Saathoff, and in tribute, it features a crushing absence of bass. It takes the album to a more serious place, with amazing detail and layering, but as it is grounded in low-end piano and solid flurries of activity, it marks a complex and serious end to an album so far filled with hope. There’s a turn at that last point – a surprise ending, a drain, an unwanted maturity. Like a child grown up too fast, We Should Never Have Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers loses its innocence to the harshness of the truth. It is an instant change, one that takes the listener by surprise no matter how many times it reveals itself. This feeling is real and relatable, and gives the album an added layer of depth – a layer that it doesn’t, in all honesty, even need, since it is already a remarkable success. Like a great film with an even better ending, one that leaves you reeling and spinning, there is almost too much here to take in at once. While there may be some critics who argue that this album should have been better than it is - specifically, in light of the fact that Saathoff's bass parts were pulled from early 4-track renditions and damper the sound quality, though barely noticeably - I believe anyone would be hard-pressed to deny the movement it evokes. On the surface, you can dance your way through it, enjoying the idiosyncratic guitar play and instant, friendly connection, but underneath, you can feel your way through it, squeezing through the ringer, noting every authenticity, and coming out stronger than ever. An album that creates pause can count that reaction as a sign of greatness; We Should Never Have Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers brings forth rich reflection, showing humanity as a real achievement. Alongside Chin Up Chin Up, we may learn difficult lessons, but they show that by getting through tribulation, we can make ourselves proud.

Pitchfork

• "Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up have garnered some attention recently, and rightly so."

  • 3 1/2 Stars. Chin Up Chin Up: "Collide the Tide" Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up have garnered some attention recently, and rightly so. This track, from CUCU's Debut LP We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers, begins by borrowing busy, twinkling dual guitars and insistent bass drum hits from their hometown's best post-rock forebears, but shortly kicks into a groove of muted guitar scrapes, siren synths, and stiff, nervous drumming. CUCU could be described as a relaxed Rapture were their arrangements not so tight and their keyboards and single-note slides not applied conservatively, rather than slathered on. Instead, "Collide the Tide" is a bridge between post-rock instrumentals of bands like Mercury Program and Aloha to the melodic sophistication of Pinback. Well-arranged and well-produced, if there's only one sticking point here, it's the vocals: singer/guitarist Jeremy Bolen delivers all his lines in a forced whisper, sounding like !!!'s Nic Offer with the flu. However, as it is with caviar and Old Style, some of the best tastes are acquired, and I can acquit the band of transgressions like vocal delivery when this track not only tastefully borrows from others but applies what it knows to a real melody. The composition stays tight even with several melodic twists and breakdowns, and the song serves as a great entry point to their debut LP, which, hopefully, is a promise of more catchy grooves and melodies to come.

Westword

• "It's as surreally vivid as its title, an emulsion of clattering rhythm and pinprick guitar."

  • It's cold, the sky is spitting rain, and I'm driving a dead man's car across Texas to see Chin Up Chin Up. The Chicago quintet is playing tonight in Denton, north of Dallas, and since I just spent Thanksgiving with my girlfriend's family in San Antonio, I figured I'd trek up and interview the band in person. The catch? I'm driving back to Denver solo in a silver Buick Century that belonged to my girlfriend's stepdad. He died three months ago. I never got to meet him. Still, his absence has loomed over the trip, an almost oppressive void that seemed to haunt every festive intent of the holiday. Chin Up Chin Up has a ghost of its own. Last February, as he and his girlfriend were leaving a show at the famed Empty Bottle in Chicago, the group's bassist, Chris Saathoff, was hit and killed by a drunk driver. The SUV dragged him for two blocks before finally relinquishing its grip, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 26. Such senseless, random tragedy is enough to break any band apart. But Chin Up Chin Up pulled itself back together, finished the album it was writing, and is currently on tour promoting its gorgeous debut full-length, We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers. A depressing title, no matter how you slice it. But as it turns out, the act has managed to keep its head above water -- even while sunk in a flood of grief. Fittingly, Denton is a swamp of sleet and mud as I pull off the highway and into the desolate industrial area that houses Rubber Gloves, the venue for tonight's show. It's literally across the tracks, sandwiched between a rail yard and a processing plant. But inside, it's an oasis: the Smiths on the jukebox, Tecate in the can and every manner of confused youth and washed-up hipster infesting its dank, grimy confines. A few minutes later I find the five of them -- singer/guitarist Jeremy Bolen, guitarist Nathan Snydacker, keyboardist Greg Sharp, drummer Chris Dye and new bassist Marc Young of Kansas's renowned Appleseed Cast -- hanging out near the stage. Introductions are passed around, and soon the band goes on. It's a funny sight, and sublime, too: Five Midwestern dudes in plaid thrift-store shirts and various states of hygienic neglect pouring their hearts out in the shape of dense, arty pop songs. They begin with their record's opening track, "Why Is My Sleeping Bag a Ghetto Muppet?" It's as surreally vivid as its title, an emulsion of clattering rhythm and pinprick guitar. It's hard to remember the last time words like "drywall" and "trifecta" were uttered with such swooning poignancy. On the CD's version of "Sleeping Bag," vibraphone is provided by Aloha's Cale Parks, and Roby Newton, formerly of Milemarker, sings backup. But here in this clammy Texas dive, Chin Up strips it down to a skeleton of melody and melancholy, a faint pulse of song that seems to shudder with each halting breath. "We're all basically from emo bands or math-rock bands, but we wanted to play music that was softer and more poppy," Bolen explains later, after he and his comrades have wrapped up their short yet infinitely graceful set. We're in the club's "green room" -- more like a closet, really -- sitting on ratty, cigarette-pocked furniture. Everyone is huddled close except for Young, who perches on the arm of the couch with his back half turned. You have to wonder if he feels a little awkward, being the new guy thrust into interviews that focus mainly on the man whose shoes he's filling. But Young was a friend of Saathoff's, too, and had even stood in briefly for the bassist on tour. Still, that didn't make it any easier last spring when he appeared with the reborn Chin Up for the first time at the Empty Bottle in front of a packed house of Saathoff's friends and relatives. "I've never been more nervous in my entire life," Young admits. "I played a show with Appleseed Cast once in front of 3,000 people, but it wasn't as scary as playing this show in front of 400 people at the Empty Bottle." As traumatic as Saathoff's loss was to Chin Up, the group was jolted back to life by a force that could not be ignored: his parents. Brad and Marlene Saathoff, who live in the Boulder area, arrived in Chicago the day after their son's death and immediately began to implement a plan they'd come up with on their trip, a non-profit project called the Chris Saathoff Foundation that aims to supply instruments, lessons and a sense of community to aspiring musicians. Their first priority was to organize a series of benefit shows for the organization, with Chin Up as the headliner. Although paralyzed by shock and grief, the band found it a hard offer to refuse. "When his parents came and said, 'We want you to keep going,' it just kind of cemented it for us," Snydacker notes. Nolen agrees: "Losing your bandmate is like losing your brother. We all spend more time with each other than with anyone else, either touring or practicing or writing songs or just hanging out. But his parents were very adamant about us continuing as a band, and those benefit shows became this driving force. We just had to keep going." The next step was to complete We Should Have Never Lived. By a morbid coincidence, the group had finished mixing demos for the album the day of the accident. Armed with encouragement and a handful of practice tapes, Chin Up went into the studio and painstakingly pieced the ten songs together using as many of Saathoff's bass lines as possible, with Snydacker re-creating what couldn't be sampled directly from the demos. "It was extremely important that we keep as much of Chris's stuff in there as possible," Dye stresses. "He was so much a part of that entire process, even though he wasn't around when we finished those songs." "Getting this record done really helped us get through things," Nolen remarks. "It created a little bit of closure in the situation. Not that it's a closed door, but having this permanent record and finishing this thing that we started with Chris definitely helped." "We had to do whatever we could to help keep Chris's spirit alive," Snydacker says. "And that's that we did with this record. We tried to keep as much of him alive in it as we could." After the show ends and the club shuts down, we all end up in a dumpy Motel 6 off I-35, downing a twelve-pack of PBR and some godawful wine in a box. As often happens under the influence of such stuff, the talk turns to friends, both present and absent. "One of our song titles, 'Get Me Off This Fucking Island,' is a quote from Chris," Bolen points out. "He went on a trip way to some island way up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was having the worst time of his life. He was a really mellow, easygoing guy, and nothing bothered him too much, but for some reason, he got real drunk and started yelling, ŒGet me off this fucking island!' He just flipped." Sharp then relates a couple of anecdotes about being on tour with Saathoff -- something that involved switching jeans with a girl and an assault with a magic marker. "Did Chris get chiefed?" I ask. "More like Smurfed," Sharp corrects. "We wrote all over him with a blue marker. He tried to take a shower, but the ink just ran down all over him. The whole rest of the day, whenever he sweated, blue showed through the armpits of his shirt. "Chris was down for anything," he adds. "He was the perfect partner in crime." And maybe it's just the effect of booze and fatigue, but Sharp isn't at all downcast at the memory of his departed friend. He's grinning from ear to ear. The next morning, hung over and sore, I crawl back into the Buick and start the twelve-hour drive home. It's still pouring like hell, a half-frozen deluge that fogs up the sky like angels' breath. I throw We Should Have Never Lived in the CD player and let its dreamy, numbing tones flow over me like an avalanche of slush. Replaying the events and conversations of yesterday in my head, I remember the guys in Chin Up Chin Up wanting to make it perfectly clear that -- in an era where it's pretty uncool to have a moniker that literally represents your music -- they weren't joking around when they came up with theirs. "There's definitely no irony involved with the band name at all," Bolen asserted. "I had always been in bands with really hard-to-spell names, so I really wanted one that was super simple. You might love it; you might hate it. But you're going to remember it." "When Jeremy came up with the name, we were all kind of hesitant," Snydacker confessed. "It just sounded kind of funny. But it fits us really well. We write pop songs, but they're still a little bit morose. But, yeah, the whole idea always was, 'Keep your chin up.' You know what I mean? Persevere. Get through it." Good advice, because out here, the rain just won't stop falling.

Mundane Sounds

• "it's clear that Chin Up Chin Up are onto something good, because their music is just....cool"

  • I gotta hand it to Chin Up Chin Up--their decision to soldier on in the face of overwhelming tragedy is admirable. After releasing a very promising EP, the band had commenced working on their debut album last winter, but on Valentine's Day, after declaring his love to his girlfriend at a show, bassist Chris Saathoff was killed by a hit-and-run driver. Such a devestating and sudden loss would have been an honorable enough reason for the band to retire--but they decided to continue on, realizing that Saathoff's legacy would not live on otherwise. To preserve his memory--and to honor their lost bandmate--the band made samples of Saathoff's bass lines from other recordings and built their songs around them. It was worth the effort. We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers is an excellent debut album. The band's songs are tight, with a rhythm that will make your feet move to the beat. With a sound that recalls--but doesn't imitate--the styles ofMoon & Antartica-era Modest Mouse and late period Dismemberment Plan, it's clear that Chin Up Chin Up are onto something good, because their music is just....cool. Check out the Jeremy Bolen's suave singing on the title track, the cool rhythms of "Virginia, Don't Drown" and "Collide the Tide" and the awesome dance groove beat of "Get Me Off Of This Fucking Island," and you'll be instantly won over by Chin Up Chin Up's charm. Occasionally the album sounds clunky and awkward, but considering the circumstances behind the album's creation and that this is but the band's debut album, you'll quickly forgive any lesser moments. In fact, you shouldn't even worry about it, because when you get caught up in the music, you won't even notice. We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers shows that Chin Up Chin Up is a very special band indeed, and that overcoming their sadness by soldiering on was a wise decision. An excellent album by a great young band, and I'm glad they're still around.

Kitty Magik

• "...a sound at once comfortable and brand new"

  • Chin Up Chin Up have been said to evoke nostalgia akin to the soundtrack of a John Hughes film. Though their sound owes more to '90s alternative rock than to the '80s crop of New Romantics, it conjures up the same bittersweet sentimentality with a crisp, autumnal wistfulness. On their self-titled EP and now, on their full-length debut, We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers, the group cultivates a languid sound from sinewy guitars, shuffling percussion, and chiming keys. Each song is tinged with an understated emotional weight. Too subtle to be called emo, their style recalls the likes of Modest Mouse and Pavement. Chin Up Chin Up refers to those bands in their biting intellect and clever turns of phrase as well-the CD opens with this gem of a title: "Why is My Sleeping Bag a Ghetto Muppet?" In their sparser, more angular moments, songs like "Collide the Tide" and "The Architect Has a Gun" bring to mind the jittery pop of Unrest. For all their revisiting of the indie rock canon, Chin Up Chin Up manages to retain independence from their peers. At times jazzier, mellower and more eccentric, they create a sound at once comfortable and brand new. Midway through the writing of the album, bassist Chris Saathoff was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The loss shaped the outcome of the disc, and undoubtedly contributed to its pervading themes of hope and optimism in the face of sadness and pain.

Coke Machine Glow

• "...the melodies are subtle and devoutly on point."

  • Rating: 76% Chicago's art-pop scene; the mere mention of it is enough to conjure Joan of Arc, like a particularly throbbing blemish on the backside of your ear that isn’t very noticeable but continues to pain you when you put your head to the pillow at night. It must’ve been the hideous queue of eager polysyllabics or the prolificacy for prolificacy’s sake, but this year’s Mark Twain, Dick Cheney, Joan of Arc… almost ruined this whole “Chicago art-avante-[scene]” deal for me. Admittedly, this unfair denouncement of a whole city’s “genre” would have discarded other intriguing bands like Tiny Hairs or the Tundra Survey, both of which take a more meticulously constructed, more patient and, well, more pleasant approach to JOA’s attempt at grand pop movements. . . but I didn’t care. I was ready to close up shop, tear up roots, sling a few meager items over my shoulder, and adopt a new sonic home. But here’s Chin Up Chin Up’s new LP, We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers---and, although it wades through the same nonsensical dregs of lyrical crud that many Chicago listeners may take for granted in this city bloated with wanta-be short story writers, the melodies are subtle and devoutly on point. Songwriter and vocalist Jeremy Bolen---at times a less confident Charles Bissell, more often a much sexier, demure Cedric Bixler---maintains the lower end of a mix dominated by clapping guitars and a loud, bristling drum kit. Bolen’s place is humbly brilliant: lyrics slurred, often unintelligible, develop a frequently monotonal rhythm as complex as Chris Saathoff’s restrained bass lines. Reminiscent of Appleseed Cast’s Low Level Owl (2001), the subdued vocals transfer a more substantial heft to the melodies that hide behind tricky time signatures and exacting arpeggios. (It should be noted: on Valentines Day of this year, Saathoff was killed in a hit and run accident outside of Chicago’s Empty Bottle, and the Cast’s Marc Young is now his permanent replacement, joining the band shortly after the completion of Skyscapers). “Why Is My Sleeping Bag A Ghetto Muppet?” is a middling initiation, setting a duskish pace to the album that is never really shrugged off until the banjo-licked chamber ditty, “All My Hammocks Are Dying.” A nibbling beat is first twined—maybe wasted—around an unchallenging piano line, but when an elastic guitar bends to a brisk trap kit, the sun snaps blood red from the horizon. Each instrument casts a crisp shadow, parts thrown in violent contrast with one another. When Ruby Newton and guitarist Nathan Snydacker offer their voices to Bolen’s chorus, the pulse of the song flutters, the piano rejoins, and the percussion turns vibrantly organic. It’s a striking dynamic, this sudden emergence of extra voices, a refined, more accessible approach to typical Kranky fare; at it’s best, the arrangements reach the kind of mathematical adroitness heard on I Am The Fun Blame Monster! (2003). So, when “Virginia, Don’t Drown” steps hurriedly into its back-ended chorus, a crackling plea to the titular state/lady, the effect, jumping from collages of Built To Spill cheeriness to chanted, Robert Smith pathos, is startling. While the last minute of “Virginia” is so successful because of the dynamism of volume and the sheer break-neck resignation of the players to sugary pop, one wishes, simultaneously, for the record to be loaded with this kind of deliciousness, to be sopping wet, feverish with minute after minute of the last minute of “Virginia, Don’t Drown.” Alas! This is an impossibility, because the glory of the moment is created from the restraint of the rest of the song, if not the rest of the album. “Let Me Off This Fucking Island” reaches a similar high, the Eno keyboard scrawling huge circles around a Britpop invasion of suave choruses and wah-wah power chords. “The Architect Has A Gun,” “Island’s” tempered predecessor, is thicker and more obtrusive than the other nine songs, but the album’s solidity doesn’t suffer; here, post-rock theatrics, so prevalent in Windy City peers, are roped to architectural rigor. From the cherubic noir of “We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers” to the glam barn-burner “I’ll Be Your Avalanche” and even into “All My Hammocks Are Dying,” stilted with airy chimes, the pace of the album never slips below anxious moments of pause. In the end, digesting Chin Up Chin Up’s new album is a bit of the ole give-an’-take. Crappy, pretentious lyrics are never truly welcome, especially in the guise of uninteresting vocals, but by burying Bolen’s deadened timbre beneath his amazing melodies and austere structure, the focus of the audience is rightly shifted from obligatory frontman to the thriving whole. Then, as the beat leaps and a phrase turns fervently communal, certain lyrics can be forgiven, even enjoyed, for opening up the end of a repetitious riff or tearing a wall of cymbals in two. One just can’t get the gut-shredding joy of a massive crescendo without measure after measure of careful plodding. Luckily, C.U.C.U.’s got melody to spare, and even the drollest or most boring of Skyscrapers’s stanzas are pimpled with ebullient chops; there’s enough here to keep Tim Kinsella pining away in the studio, sweating the hype, and enough to keep my gunnysack hung on the door. Thank you, I’ll be here for a while

Chicago Reader - The Meter

• "Chin Up Chin Up lost their bass player to a hit-and-run driver in February, but they took pains to make sure he'd be on their new album."

  • On February 13, 2004, bassist Chris Saathoff and his bandmates in Chin Up Chin Up went to the Empty Bottle to see the Ponys and We Ragazzi. They were in the mood to celebrate: they'd just finished mixing a batch of demos with engineer Jeremy Lemos at Semaphore Recording, and it looked like they were finally ready to record a full-length follow-up to the EP they'd put out a year before. A little after one in the morning, Saathoff left the rest of the band -- singer Jeremy Bolen, guitarist Nathan Snydacker, keyboardist Greg Sharp, and drummer Chris Dye -- and ducked out with his new girlfriend, Tiffany Weeder. It was a few hours into Valentine's Day, and as they walked he told her he loved her for the first time. Weeder says the couple was crossing Division at Western hand in hand when an SUV careened through the intersection, striking Saathoff as he tried to push her to safety. (She was also injured.) According to the police report, the driver never stopped, and Saathoff was dragged for nearly two blocks. The 26-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene. Within the hour police had arrested William Giraldo, 20, and charged him with aggravated DUI and reckless homicide. "None of us knew," says Bolen. "When I drove home that night I saw all the cops there, but it didn't even cross my mind. I think I was the first one to get the call the next morning." The reality of the situation had sunk in by that evening, and the band fell into a state of shock. "After that," says Bolen, "we all just drank a whole lot for about a month." Meanwhile Saathoff's parents, who live in Colorado, decided to establish a charity in their son's memory, the Christopher Saathoff Foundation (www.chrissaathofffoundation.org). They enlisted Chin Up to headline and help organize a pair of benefit concerts. According to its mission statement, the foundation hopes to become "an instrument to support the art of music in the Chicago area" and eventually "develop programs, activities and even a center where we can make sure 'the music never stops.'" The first show was at the Bottle on March 19. With Saathoff's friend and roommate Quinn Goodwillie of the local band Mt. St. Helens filling in on bass, Chin Up played its set to a packed house of friends, family, and well-wishers. "As weird as it sounds," says Sharp, "it really felt like Chris was onstage with us that night." "Greg asked everyone to clap along with the last song," recalls Bolen. "And this is at the Bottle, a place where that never happens. It was just amazing to watch all these people getting into it. His parents were there. His mom actually scattered some of his ashes on the stage afterwards. It was . . . intense and really beautiful." Buoyed by the outpouring of support and directly encouraged by Saathoff's parents, Chin Up decided to continue as a band even after the second benefit in April. "In the end we all kind of felt that's what Chris would've wanted," says Dye. In May, Bolen sent the four-song demo the band had finished in February to more than 50 labels. Three days later the local label Flameshovel responded, and within a few weeks a deal had been finalized and a fall release date set. The band bought producer John Congleton (of north Texas art-rockers the Paper Chase) a plane ticket and holed up with him for eight days in July at Electrical Audio and Soma, working 14 hours a day. "We had no cushion whatsoever making the record," says Bolen. "We finished recording and mixing, mastered the next day, and sent it out to the manufacturing plant that same evening." We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers will be officially released on October 26. The process was a challenge in part because Chin Up had decided to make Saathoff a part of the new album. They isolated his bass tracks on the four demo songs and recorded new tracks around them -- an especially tricky task for Dye, since drummers can usually count on the rest of the band to follow their lead. Snydacker, who played bass on the remaining songs, based his parts on ideas Saathoff had developed in rehearsals. "Even though we were recording without him, going back through all the tapes, listening and pulling out bass lines he'd written, it really felt like he was part of the process," he says. "It kept the momentum going for us." The disc's only post-Saathoff song -- the closing elegy "All My Hammocks Are Dying" -- doesn't have any bass at all. The album's dreamy, lachrymose pop more than delivers on the promise of Chin Up Chin Up's self-titled EP. "The best description anyone's ever given about our band was that our songs are like walking home on a really beautiful spring day after your girlfriend just dumped you," says Bolen. "That's a pretty accurate assessment of our sound." In the studio Chin Up had made do with Snydacker doubling on bass and guitar, but to continue playing live the band still needed to find a full-time bassist. Goodwillie was busy with work and his own band, so Chin Up recruited Marc Young of Appleseed Cast. Young had subbed for Saathoff before, when he'd left a west-coast tour in 2003 to attend his brother's wedding. "Marc was the only person that made sense," says Bolen. "Him and Chris got along really well. He'd played with us before, and we're all good friends." Young debuted earlier this month, playing shows with the band in Bloomington and Champaign. On Monday at the Bottle, Chin Up will make its first Chicago appearance since the April benefit, fresh off a gig at CMJ in New York. The show's a release party for Skyscrapers, and it's free. "Which is nice," says Sharp. "People have supported us so much through all the stuff with Chris and with the benefits, it's nice to be able to do a free show as a thank-you." Giraldo's trial is still pending. According to the police report, at the time he was charged his blood alcohol content tested at .134, well over the legal limit of .08. He's been free on a $150,000 bond since February. There have been several preliminary hearings so far, but his lawyer has repeatedly requested continuances. Representatives of the state's attorney's office expect the process to move forward in January. Whatever happens in court, it won't be much consolation to the members of Chin Up Chin Up. "When Chris died it was all unresolved. Getting this album finished and out is really an important step, just in adding a little closure," says Bolen. "Not that there'll ever really be any closure."

Dallas Observer

• "It's melodic but complex... Chin Up Chin Up makes this cacophony into brilliant little symphonies."

  • Last Valentine's Day, Chicago band Chin Up Chin Up became famous for the wrong reason. Bass player Chris Saathoff was killed when a speeding car hit him crossing the street on his way home from the Empty Bottle. But the John Congleton-produced We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers isn't the band's final--and best--moment. It was recorded in July and shows a band refocused. Chin Up Chin Up takes the complicated guitar rock of bands such as Braid, adds guitar-based dance rhythms (think the Rapture) and layers it with static, samples and breathless, whispered, moany vocals reminiscent of Jarvis Cocker. But Chin Up Chin Up is more than a sum of previous ideas. It's melodic but complex, voices overlapping each other, blending with sounds of xylophone, theremin, keyboards and sirens, and highlighting the ever-present math-rock-like guitars. Time signatures and styles change abruptly within songs, making tracks seem almost like medleys: "Collide the Tide" begins with crunchy staccato guitars, then kamikaze keyboards come in, and the vocals unite the two warring instruments in a third section. Somehow, throughout We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers, Chin Up Chin Up makes this cacophony into brilliant little symphonies.

Shredding Paper No. 15

• "Kick-ass instrumental arrangements...."

  • Kick-ass instrumental arrangements, not unlike Pinback performing the soundtrack to a Molly Ringwald movie, coated with low-key emo vocals and a truly scary devotion to 80's atmospherics. Shimmering, noise-ridden landscapes are littered with the corpses of Joy Division and Slint and Modest Mouse and countless synthesizers and electric guitar strings. I can't look! I can't look away! What have you done to me, Chin Up Chin Up? I love you!

Delusions of Adequacy

• "...managed to combine linear pop songs with nontraditional instrumentation...."

  • Chicago's Chin Up Chin Up takes the prize for best song titles of the year so far on their self-titled EP: "Collide the Tide," "Fuck You, Elton Hohn," "For All the Tanning Salons in Texas," "The Soccer Mom Gets Her Fix," "I'm Not Asking for a Tennis Bracelet," and "Pillage the Village." With these humorous titles, I was expecting some funny pop-punk or something of the like but instead was surprised by understated songs that feature layering hushed vocals over chiming guitars and subtle keyboard flourishes from current/former members of Tekulvi, Nymb, and Punjab. The music itself, does nothing to reflect the humor in the titles, which is a good thing. Chin Up Chin Up take a page from the Pavement songbook, but their guitars are actually tuned. While the songs have a laid back feel to them, they are not lazy or sloppy; in fact they're very tight. The result are songs that covey a sentimental feeling akin to an 80s John Hughes movie soundtrack, but with a contemporary sound. Chin Up Chin Up have a sound that is mature, melodically rich, and textural, having managed to combine linear pop songs with nontraditional instrumentation such as theremin. With the lack of screaming and distortion, the emphasis is on the songs themselves, which is a good thing when the songs hold up and Chin Up Chin Up have certainly pulled it off here.

Punchline Magazine Richmond weekly

• "bands of this quality are so rare that they're a novelty simply by being so good."

  • Chin Up Chin Up is a fantastic band, but they sure do make things difficult for themselves. They've got a weird-ass name, they're on a record label called Record Label, and worst of all, they don't have a gimmick - they don't wear costumes and they don't tour in a hearse. But they do write solid, dependable songs. This Chicago foursome is reminiscent of late 90s Teenbeat bands like Versus, Aden, and True Love Always, layering hushed vocals over chiming guitars and subtle keyboard flourishes. They write understated songs, which is a gamble for an unestablished band - without screaming vocals or wacky sound effects, all the emphasis is on the songs themselves. Yet Chin Up Chin Up shoulders the burden admirably. In fact, bands of this quality are so rare that they're a novelty simply by being so good.

Village Voice

• "...a band to keep an ear on."

  • Chin Up Chin Ups a new Chicago band who've just released an impressive EP on the new Brooklyn label, ingeniously titled Record Label. The band's strength is its sinewy intertwining melodic guitar lines and subtle (yet anthemic) vocal melodies; though heaps of comparisons to Sea and Cake are inevitable, they're still a band to keep an ear on.

UR Chicago (Record of the Month)

• "...their music makes you want to get down."

  • Chin Up Chin Up is pure "Chicago sound": Calypso guitars and soft vocals evoke the Sea and Cake, while tight, jazzy drum breaks boast all thinkgs "post-rock" and Tortoise. But they also share something with a couple of bands who aren't from Chicago (though they all have recent releases on Chicago labels):!!! (Thrill Jockey_ and Out Hud (Kranky). It's the way their music makes you want to get down. Chin Up Chin Up join other nascent Chicago groups like the Watchers and Stag Party in the au courant movement to make you move -- and it sounds like the kind of party where you wanna hit the dancefloor rather than be the best-dressed wallflower. They waited a reported eight months to unveil their sound live, but songs like the EP's opener, "Collide the Tide," are well worth the wait. Breathy bocas of the Pinback variety do double-duty between singers Jeremy Bolen and Nathan Snydacker, who tempers the sound with a nasal straight-talk similar to Joe Strummer's. Accordingly, funky guitars are strummed in muted rhythms as spacey keyboards keep the jam flowing. Displaying an acute sense of humor, song titles include the mysteriously vengeful, "Fuck You, Elton John," the disturbing "The Soccer Mom Gets Her Fix," and "I'm Not Asking For a Tennis Bracelet," which features a spot-on Teramin care of guest musician Devin Davis. At their best, like at the end of "Pillage the Village," Chin Up Chin Up make the simple appear complex. Heavy guitar-slides overbear high-ringing guitar notes; as they slowly drop out, a keyboard continues its steady melody. Finally, the song deconstructs itself to just the vocals...like a dancing fool stripping his clothes off to feel the music all the better.

Splendid

• "...wrought with a sense of moral complexity and heartfelt obstinacy"

  • A new Windy City outfit that counts current/former members of Tekulvi, Nymb and Punjab among its ranks, Chin Up Chin Up crafts idiosyncratic pop tunes that rely on simplistic strum-and-chime song structures, yet are wrought with a sense of moral complexity and heartfelt obstinacy. Guitar pop purists will undoubtedly applaud the group's jaunty, faux British Invasion zeal, particularly evident throughout "For all the Tanning Salons in Texas", while staunch indie rockers and dissonance-loving killjoys alike will appreciate the cheerless, Pavement-on-Zocor feel of "Fuck You, Elton John". Rays of light are occasionally evident, but all too often the group is fully immersed within its gloomy gulag ("I'm Not Asking for a Tennis Bracelet", "Collide the Tide"), unable to escape their inherent dreariness -- ultimately leaving the listener aching for something, anything, to soothe the pain. It's unfortunate, but the band's overarching desire to create music rife with the intricacies of modern living leaves them holding their metaphorical hats, cast yet again as casualties of the war on art.

City Pages Minneapolis weekly

• "Play Modest Mouse in an empty room, blast the Sea and Cake in the middle of the library...."

  • Play Modest Mouse in an empty room, blast the Sea and Cake in the middle of the library, listen to American Analog Set and Les Savy Fav on your headphones during a long walk home, and you'll hear the happy ache of Chin Up Chin Up. The Chicago band's self-titled EP (out on Brooklyn's generically named Record Label) is soft enough to sound humble, but still angular enough to make "humble" sound like the best old-school indie rock since Ugly Casanova's Sharpen Your Teeth.

MOJO Magazine

• "...meet your new favourite Chicago art-pop band...."

  • What's hot in the Mojo office stereo this month #6: Chin Up Chin Up ('record label'). They wear suits, the cover finds them boating, there's a track called Fuck You, Elton John. Fans of Sea and Cake or Joan of Arc, meet your new favourite Chicago art-pop band on this six-song EP.