Don't Let Your Guard Down

On their first (and apparently last, since the band "went on hiatus" shortly after its release) full album, suburban Maryland emo kidz Downtown Singapore stay comfortably in an increasingly well-worn groove. Anyone who liked Jimmy Eat World and the Get Up Kids will, well, "love" is way too strong a word for this catchy but utterly undistinguished album. "Find comfortably familiar" is closer to the mark, and that's exactly the problem. Downtown Singapore's take on the poppy-punky side of emo ranges from entirely competent to occasionally inspired -- "Clean Getaway" has a fine, surging chorus, and "Toy Soldiers and Hand Grenades" ends with a massed vocal bit that's surprisingly reminiscent of Queen -- and lead singer Jerry Scott steers clear of most of the genre's most annoying vocal tics (like the "I'm so frickin' sensitive" angst-wail), but at the album's end, nothing sticks with the listener. Don't Let Your Guard Down may eventually be seen as a harbinger of emo's final trailings into irrelevance, assuming that it's remembered at all.