Kevin Bronson on February 14th, 2012

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The Breakups are one of those local bands you should never take for granted – steady hands, making music around their day jobs and responsibilities in other bands and, in songwriter Jake Gideon’s case, confidently carrying the torch of true-blue power-pop. “Running Jumping Falling Shouting,” out today, is the Breakups’ first release since 2008’s “Eat Your Heart Out” EP, and the quintet of Gideon and bandmates Phil Shrut, James Williams, Nik Ahlstam and Tim Lee) dispenses sharp ear candy indebted to the likes of Elvis Costello, Emitt Rhodes, the Beatles and the melody-laden, lovelorn masses that followed. For someone with a classic pop palette, Gideon has a postmodern outlook on affairs of the heart. (See “Sentimentalitis,” co-written by Wait. Think. Fast’s Jacqueline Santillan, one of myriad contributors on the album.) And then there is the timing. The Breakups, releasing an album on a Hallmark holiday? So there.

||| Download: “Better Off Alone”