Though they reside on Vagrant and have matured at a rate and in a manner similar to the Get Up Kids, there's something...East Coast about Hot Rod Circuit that cordons them off from the dreaded emo-pop tag. While Reality's Coming Through has its share of pleading choruses and heartstring-tug power-chord changes (and genre spokesman Chris Carrabba guests on the rousing "Unfaithful"), this effort mostly suggests the resigned, flinty rock of Buffalo Tom, or vaguely the later Barlow/Loewenstein axis of Sebadoh. "Fear the Sound"'s wrangled guitars and struggling half-time, "Cheap Trick"'s clever musical references, the achy, pedal steel-tinged "Best You Ever Knew" — these songs don't deserve to be corralled behind the invisible fence of a meaningless genre. The presence of old-hand East Coast p...