emo

Record #1021: Jawbox – Jawbox (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Speaking of the DC post-hardcore scene…

One of the biggest death knells to a punk band is to be deemed a sell out. And in the 90s, when every record label in the world was signing every noisy band they could in hopes of finding the next Nirvana, the sharks came circling around Dischord Records. While Fugazi famously turned down a number of massive record deals, not everyone was as staunch in their business ethics.

When Jawbox entered into a deal with Atlantic Records, the punks were up in arms. But somehow, the two records released on Atlantic were unscathed by the corporitizing and sanitizing that came with selling out. Like For Your Own Special Sweetheart before it, their ’96 self-titled record is a cavalcade of jagged post-hardcore by one of the best to ever do it—major label or not.

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Record #1020: Embrace – Embrace (1987)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In conversations about Fugazi (and the evolution of hardcore and emo in general), most of the talk focuses on two bands: Minor Threat and Rites of Spring. And while the importance of those projects cannot be ignored, there is one project that is tragically overlooked.

That project is Embrace. While Ian MacKaye’s road from Minor Threat to Fugazi had a few detours along the way, none of them foreshadowed what was to come more clearly than Embrace.

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Record #1018: Native – Wrestling Moves (2010)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Few things give me as much joy as shouty vocals, tappy guitar riffs, assymetrical drum riffs, the Northern Indiana DIY music scene, and pro wrestling. So obviously, Wrestling Moves, the debut LP from NWI post-hardcore group Native, hits me square across the chest.

Unfortunatley though, their tenure as a band coincided with a period where I was sort of divorced from the local-ish heavy music scene. I’ve only gotten into them in the last few years—and that was mostly through frontman Bobby Markos’ current band Cloakroom. While there’s not a ton of overlap between the doomgaze of Cloakroom and Native’s jagged, angular post-hardcore, this project has way more going for it than as a footnote for a more famous act.

Read more at ayearofvinyl.com

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Record #987: 84 Tigers – Time in the Lighthouse (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’m not reviewing records for other sites quite as much these days, but when I did, it was often a huge exercise in self control to not buy ever record I listened to. It’s still a mystery to me how I would decide to buy some records but not others, but it was not a foolproof system, and sometimes I erred.

One of the more grievous errors was to not buy Time in the Lighthouse, the debut of Michigan post-hardcore 84 Tigers, an act whose members’ resumes include Small Brown Bike and Swellers. In fact, I bought this record only after re-reading my own glowing review.

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Record #985: Benton Falls – Guilt Beats Hate (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Very few releases had as profound an impact on my teenaged music tastes than Deep Elm Records’ Emo Is Awesome, Emo is Evil, Vol 1. And few tracks on that compilation had the impact of Benton Falls “Angel on Hiatus,” a shapeshifting track that traverses the full spectrum of emo’s moods and dynamics with a powerful climax.

But like many of the bands discovered through that comp (see also: The Appleseed Cast), I didn’t dive too deeply into the records that provided those tracks. While many of the songs from Guilt Beats Hate ended up on various emo mix CD-Rs, it’s taken me until just now to buy a proper copy. The record has lost none of its potency though.

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Record #952: Fiddlehead – Death is Nothing to Us (2023)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

By now, it’s become pretty apparent that Fiddlehead has overcome every curse that befalls supergroups. While many similar groups are crushed by the weight of their own hype before their first record, Fiddlehead continues to get better.

Death Is Nothing To Us continues the band’s penchant for observing grief through a lens of fist-pumping, emotional post-hardcore, but this time around, they magnify the nuance of both their sound and mourning to subatomic detail.

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Record #942: Lewis – Even So (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I’m not sure anything contributed more to my music taste than Deep Elm’s Emo Is Awesome, Emo Is Evil compilation (maybe Songs From the Penalty Box 4, but that’s a different story). Like many a Millennial youth, I grabbed a copy after seeing it next to the register at Hot Topic. I didn’t recognize a single name on the tracklist, but it introduced me to a group of bands that showed just how diverse emo could be, like Red Animal War, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Logh, Benton Falls, the Appleseed Cast (still an all time favorite), and so many more.

Lewis was on that compilation, but their contribution didn’t grab me. I mostly ignored them until I got a copy of Even So in a $1 Random CD sale the label was having. It didn’t take much convincing for that disc to join my regular listening rotation.

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Record #941: Braid – Frame and Canvas (1997)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I swear, sometimes it feels like I never had an emo phase at all. Despite how fully consumed I was by that scene from ages 15 to 18, I stumble upon foundational records that I’ve totally ignored with a startling regularity.

Add another tally for my ignorance, because even though I had listened to Braid’s seminal Frame and Canvas before this decade, I was still well into my twenties when I did hear it, and it took me until this past week to realize I needed it.

And yeah. I’m kicking myself.

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Record #938: Anchors – Adult Decisions (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Go to local shows.

I cannot emphasize this point enough. Beneath the glimmer of mainstream music is a thriving ecosystem of artists who are just as good (or better!) than anything you might find on on the radio. And while some folks might scoff and say, “but I don’t know any of those bands!”, the discovery is the point.

A few weeks ago, my band played a show in a city we’d never been, and we were delighted by both the reception we received and the quality of the bands we played with. For the point of this post, I’ll draw special attention to Anchors, playing that night as a solo act on electric guitar. I got a copy of the album and found that while the stripped-down arrangements helped to highlight David Black’s clever songwriting, the full band versions on record don’t obscure it any.

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Record #927: The Get Up Kids – Eudora (2001)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I’ve previously said that I wasn’t a huge Get Up Kids fan as a teenager. There was a single reason for that: nothing could top my entry to the band, which was this, the Eudora compilation, which I bought specifically the track “Central Standard Time,” which is a top ten emo song, and spun on repeat for months at a time. As great as their studio albums were, nothing else grabbed my attention like this compilation.

As for why I hadn’t purchased this record until this week though, I can’t tell you that.

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