Timothy Gabriele: Why is that 40-year-old man showering with a bunch of high school kids and why is no one calling the cops on him? In fact, it’s creepy that all of these old guys are at this high school at all. In fact, it’s creepy that these old musicians pretending to be guys too old for high school are making music specifically aimed at teenagers, baiting them with foul-mouthed takes on riffs that seem to lift straight from the Warrant handbook. Wacky hijinks for a few minutes… Oh, I guess the cops do eventually catch up to them, and kill one of them (“never seen again”)? What a romp. No, but seriously, drugging teenage girls and attempting to gas a lacrosse team to death is hilarious. Hey, you know what the best thing about the ’80s really is, kids these days? That we don’t have to live there anymore. [2/10]
Paul Duffus: It’s a genuine privilege to hear this. I didn’t think they made music this bad anymore. I know there are a million terrible hipster synthpop acts loose in the wild and that there will always be TV talent show effluent sloshing around in our collective cochlea but, no, what I mean is traditional, ‘old style’ bad rock music. It’s heartwarming to know there are still bands out there mining this glorious seam of misadventure. “You Got Spirit, Kid” comes across like a combination of Alien Ant Farm and Rush without the excuse that it’s 2001 or any hilarious Randian allusions to redeem it. Gleaming pop production, very familiar riffs and vocal hooks, and artless lyrics which are possibly about the subject of feeling entitled (C&C’s conclusion seems to be that it’s a bad thing), it’s more than we could have hoped for more. And yet just when you think the golden toilet bowl is full, there’s the video! It’s a gas, a wonderful waste of good money filled with unintentional laughs as four large, hairy men in their mid-30s hang around high school locker rooms and poison the pupils. The band deserve immense kudos for the lack of self-awareness displayed in both the song and the video. They seem happy for it, and why not. [3/10]