Record #884: He Is Legend – I Am Hollywood (2004)

2004 was a different time, man. Asymmetrical haircuts were flatironed in the front and hairsprayed in the back for maximum volume. Lopsided liprings and bandanas (or, briefly, surgical masks) were must-have accessories for off-center t-shirts and jeans that couldn’t be tighter if they were painted on. It all looked ridiculous in public, of course, but it didn’t matter: it was all constructed to look best from the MySpace Angle™, which was the ultimate arbiter of clout.

I Am Hollywood probably isn’t the Most Scene record of that era, but its chaotic genre-hopping and anything-goes grab bag of pop culture references is perhaps the most emblematic record for the hyperactive attention deficit of the early 2000s scene.

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Record #880: Blindside – Silence (2002)

I’ll admit it right now—when Sweden’s Blindside first captured the attention of America’s disaffected youth (groups) with A Thought Crushed My Mind, I wasn’t that impressed. I had several friends who were absolutely obsessed (particularly with the manic refrain of “I’M A VAMPIRE!” from “King of the Closet”) but it didn’t do anything for me. Which is odd, considering that 1) they were the undisputed third member of a trinity that also included Project 86 and P.O.D.—two of the bands that got me to care about music in the first place—and 2) I most certainly wouldn’t have “known better.”

But a few years later, while watching the skateboarding film Grind, I was entranced by a band performing during a competition scene. I did some digging and realized that this was the same Blindside that did the goofy vampire song. Everything about it entranced me. I even asked my amateur stylist girlfriend for the lead singer’s haircut (we didn’t quite get it). I tracked down a copy of both Silence and the following album About a Burning Fire and wore them out. And I’m not afraid to confess that I rebought CD copies of each as recently as last year.

And I’ll further own up to the fact that I spent exactly zero seconds deliberating over this reissue—bizarre new cover art aside. And though I expected to enjoy “Pitiful” and a couple other tracks and cringe through the deep cuts, I found it far more consistent than I remembered it being.

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Record #872: idle threat – Blurred Visions (2021)

Across the last several years, it’s been almost impossible to have any presence in the Midwestern DIY scene without running into Idle Threat. The Nashville post-hardcore outfit has been the dictionary definition of workhorses, playing every small festival I’ve been to (or organized), and even organizing their own.

And for years, they’ve done this all as an entirely independent band. Then, fate moved the hands of justice, and they were added to the iconic Tooth & Nail Records (alongside fellow indie workhorses Salt Creek and Valleyheart).

That deal brought about Blurred Visions, the long-awaited debut full-length. While it’s obvious that they had some additional funds, it retains all of the passion and earnestness of their early EPs without ever getting unfocused with the longer running time.

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Record #858: Cave In – Heavy Pendulum (2022)

Cave In have often been described as chameleons. However, those tree-dwelling lizards can really only change their color, which is a poor analog for the Boston quartet’s sonic shapeshifting abilities. They’re more like some sort of Lovecraftian cephalopod, changing its color, shape, and size at will. From the brutal metalcore of their early records to the soaring space rock of Antenna, Cave In has thrived on reinventing themselves.

But on Heavy Pendulum, they somehow manage to fit every facet of their career into a single—albeit massive—record. They follow all of their seemingly contradictory instincts to their breaking points, creating what might be the most Cave In-y Cave In record of all time.

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Record #839: Least – Folding My Hands, Accepting Defeat (2021)

Somewhere around 2005, I decided that emo was dead.

I had spent my formative years in devout reverence to bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Thursday, Appleseed Cast, and Further Seems Forever.  But when the wave shifted to bands like Fall Out Boy, Anberlin, and My Chemical Romance (who, even they will tell you, were not emo), I let my attention stray from the scene and moved on to things like indie, folk, and post rock.

The last decade or so has ushered in an honest-to-goodness emo renaissance so profound it’s not even fair to call it a revival anymore, with bands all over the world resurrecting the best parts of the halcyon emo scene of yore with stunning results.

And while Florida emo outfit least may bear some superficial resemblance to the guy-linered mallcore that put such a bad taste in my mouth in the first place (some have jokingly referred to them as “Transberlin”), if any of that stuff sounded like this, I never would have retired my girl jeans in the mid-oughts.

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Record #830: Hot Water Music – Caution (2002)

By now, anyone who knows me should already know that there are some inexplicable and inexcusable gaps in my music knowledge. There are plenty of bands that I should have grown up loving but ignored for one reason or another.

In the case of Hot Water Music, my suspicion is that I had confused them for Poison the Well, who I never cared for. And yes, I know how stupid that was.

I’ve set to mending these gaps over the last few years, but few of those undertakings have been as satisfying as Hot Water Music’s Caution, a fiery burst of melodic post hardcore that checks just about every box of what I was looking for as a high schooler.

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Record #810: Drive Like Jehu – Drive Like Jehu (1991)

1991 has been called “The Year that Punk Broke.” The success of Nirvana’s Nevermind led record companies to make a mad dash to sign all the noisy, abrasive, energetic bands they could find, leading to some absolutely bizarre major label deals for bands like Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins, and Jawbox. DIY stalwarts Fugazi purportedly turned down multiple million-dollar deals.

One of the noisier bands to land one of those deals was Drive Like Jehu, whose sprawling math-rock/post-hardcore masterpiece Yank Crime was somehow released on Interscope.

But Interscope wouldn’t have been interested had it not been for the success of their self-titled debut, which lacks none of the fury or ambition of its follow-up.

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