I have said, often and loudly, that I don’t like screamo. And I don’t mean screamo as a catchall term for any music with screaming in it, like your mom uses it, but as a distinct branch of emo and hardcore heralded by bands like Orchid, pg.99, and Saetia. I’ve proclaimed for years that it’s too abrasive and tuneless for my tastes.
Exceptions were made, of course, for envy. And Boneflower. And Chalk Hands. And Birds in Row. And…actually you know what, maybe I do like screamo. Because recently, I’ve found a few skramz records that I really love. One that was introduced to me recently was Survival / Sickness, the debut record from Crowning out of Chicago, a cathartic fury so explosive that it lasts a mere eighteen minutes before burning out. Still, it packs in more energy in that short runtime than several albums three times its length.
As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “Change is the only constant in life.” He probably wasn’t talking about the artistic trajectory of musicians, but it’s certainly applicable. Every artist’s career is destined to change—whether by the continued growth of experimentation or the stagnation from repeating once-fresh formulas until they decay. And as artists change, their fans also change, and often in different directions. It seems to me that many fans usually follow an artist for three albums before they each move beyond one another.