The Get Arounds Turn Up the Hooks on Going Out Tonight

Wet pavement. Neon bleeding across Chinatown. A bus humming through Vancouver after dark while somewhere behind a bar door, guitars are turned up just past reasonable. That is the natural habitat of The Get Arounds on Going Out Tonight, their second full-length and a record that sounds increasingly certain about what this band should be.

Released August 17, 2026, the thirteen-track album runs on an uncomplicated but demanding formula: memorable songs, large guitars, hard drums and choruses worth coming back for. Power pop supplies the melodic instinct. Punk gives it teeth. Alternative rock adds weight around the edges.

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Watch “Bones”

The sound arrives when the searching stops

The difference between Going Out Tonight and debut album I Wanna Live is not a dramatic reinvention. It is focus.

“I think the new record is a little more focused on the songwriting,” says Carman Lethbridge. “On the first record we didn’t really know what kind of band we were or where we wanted to take it. We were looking for a sound and I think we found it on this one.”

His description of that sound is refreshingly direct: a modern version of a classic radio rock band. The reference points surrounding the record make sense — Blondie, L7, Dead Boys, Bikini Kill and The Pretenders — but Going Out Tonight works best when those ghosts stay in the peripheral vision. The Get Arounds are interested in the same basic machinery: tension, melody, volume and the moment when a chorus clicks into place.

“We love great songs with choruses and big guitars and kick ass drums,” Lethbridge says. “Who doesn’t?”

Thirty minutes, one vocal take

The band emerged during lockdown after Lethbridge began writing and recording at home with drummer Lana Ryma. The project changed shape when Ryma moved from behind the drums into the lead vocal position, giving The Get Arounds a voice capable of holding grit and melody in the same frame.

The title track captures how naturally that chemistry can work. According to Ryma, “Going Out Tonight” took around thirty minutes to write, and the recording retains her first vocal take.

“There’s a few dissonant notes but I loved how it sounded so we kept it,” she says.

That decision says plenty about the album. The Get Arounds understand that precision and personality are not always the same thing. A note sitting slightly sideways can carry more electricity than a corrected one. Across Going Out Tonight, they repeatedly choose momentum over cosmetic perfection.

Thirteen tracks with little interest in standing still

The record moves accordingly. “Fuck Around” and “Shut You Down” arrive with clipped rhythms and immediate impact, while “Waiting For The Stars” and “Hold On” give their melodies a little more oxygen. “Black Corvette” brings swagger into the frame, and “Stuck In LA” sits comfortably between polished power-pop instinct and something more scuffed at the edges.

“Kill Or Be Killed”, featuring Ryma back on drums, cuts harder as a direct punk charge. “Do Or Die” shifts the color again with a contemporary British pop-rock pull. The changes are enough to keep the thirteen-song sequence moving without making the album feel like a collection of unrelated ideas.

Then there is “Bones.”

The track lowers the lights and reveals another dimension to the band. “It’s a hauntingly beautiful song about life and how cruel it can be,” Ryma says. “The evil some commit and truths they hide.”

Placed against the record’s faster material, its darkness feels heavier. The guitars no longer need to race toward the next corner. The song is allowed to sit with what it has uncovered.

Vancouver after dark

There is also a geography to Going Out Tonight, even when Vancouver is not explicitly announcing itself in every lyric. The city appears through texture: damp streets, old rooms, electric wires, alleys and the uneasy glow of the Downtown Eastside after sunset.

It never becomes scenery for scenery’s sake. Instead, that environment gives the record a worn-in physicality. The Get Arounds sound like a band connected to rooms where rock music remains something sweaty, loud and immediate rather than carefully preserved behind glass.

That sense of place fits the album’s resistance to unnecessary polish. Recorded by Jason Solyom and Lethbridge and mixed by Solyom, Going Out Tonight keeps the production close to the songs. Lethbridge handles much of the instrumentation, with Ryma contributing vocals and drums on selected tracks and Jay Solyom completing the studio lineup.

Getting personal without losing the hook

The sharper songwriting has also pushed Lethbridge toward less comfortable territory.

“I’m really proud of this record musically and especially lyrically,” he says. “I feel like I’m just starting to hit my stride as a songwriter. Trying to cut to the truth. When songs are really personal it’s a bit scary, but people connect with that.”

Tracks including “Bones,” “Hideaway” and “Black Corvette” make room for that vulnerability without abandoning the band’s central instinct. The hook remains important. So does the guitar. The emotional detail simply gives both something heavier to carry.

A studio record built to get louder onstage

Live, the architecture expands. Sean Stubbs joins on drums, Lisa Lloyd handles bass and Kimi Mah completes the stage lineup, transforming the studio material into something heavier and less predictable.

“Our live band is killing it right now,” Lethbridge says. “Sean Stubbs is the best drummer I’ve ever played with. Lisa Lloyd is a natural born rock star bass player, and Kimi Mah knows the songs better than I do.”

It feels like the appropriate destination for these songs. Going Out Tonight is not constructed around elaborate studio puzzles. Its pleasures are physical: a drum hit arriving exactly where it should, a guitar opening up, a vocal retaining its rough edge, a chorus suddenly belonging to everyone in the room.

Ryma summarizes the record with considerably fewer words: “It’s a rock n’ roll party for sure. I think we kicked ass.”

That might be the cleanest description available. The Get Arounds spent their first record looking for the center. On Going Out Tonight, they sound like they found it — then turned the volume up.

Listen to The Get Arounds

Going Out Tonight is available now. Music and merchandise can be ordered through The Get Arounds’ Bandcamp. Follow the band on Instagram, Spotify, Facebook and X.