AMG Review of Get Here and Stay

Jason Kaufman
All Music Guide

764-Hero may not admit it, but all the rainy days in their hometown of Seattle have obviously gotten to them. As confident a breakup album as you'll hear, Get Here and Stay plays out like a sopping wet Sunday afternoon made for laying low. Lead man John Atkins isn't afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, and his emotional tales of wounded love play out with added poignancy due to this openness, especially on the desolate and graceful "Calendar Pages." It doesn't hurt that his tight guitar rhythms, paired off with Polly Johnson's whispering drum beats, offer up lovely melodies, and even a bit of melancholia all too rare in most indie love letters. Even when Atkins tries to let the sun shine through the melodies, as on the lo-fi stomper "History Lessons," the distraught romantic in him turns the new wave organs underneath the surface into cries of heartbreak.