post hardcore

Record #758: Coheed & Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Coheed & Cambria attracts a lot of criticism for their… whole deal. Sci-fi prog rock concept albums based on a comic book written by the lead singer who then sings about genetic wars and space armadas in an androgynous elf voice isn’t exactly a recipe for mainstream success. But at their best, Coheed has a gift for wrapping these weirder elements up in sugary sweet pop hooks and classic rock tropes.

This mystical ability to mix prog and pop made me a massive fan of their first three albums, but every time I’ve dug into their later works, it seemed they leaned far too heavily into their more experimental compositions, neglecting the earworms entirely. But after finally acquiring a copy of their stunning debut, I learned that I had entirely missed their fourth album, No World For Tomorrow, which might actually be their hookiest, catchiest, classic-rockiest album ever.

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Record #757: Coheed and Cambria – Second Stage Turbine Blade (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

Looking back, it makes no sense that Coheed and Cambria was ever lumped in with the early 2000s emo/post-hardcore/pop-punk scene.  Sure, they were members of the Equal Vision Records roster and shared a number of tours with scene mainstays like Thursday, The Used, and Further Seems Forever. They were even a fixture of Warped Tour for several years.

But musically, they have far more in common with bands like Rush and Led Zeppelin (to whom Coheed was compared by Guitar World on the advent of their sophomore album) than Sunny Day Real Estate or Jimmy Eat World. If Coheed was emo, it was by the most tenuous definitions of the term.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this was one of the most important albums of my emo phase.

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Record #756: June of 44 – Tropics and Meridians (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

One of the more interesting things about music to me is how we attempt to categorize and classify according to imperfect terminologies—and more specifically, how that terminology changes over time.

Take for instance the term math rock. These days, it is most often used to describe neo-prog with noodly guitar lines (usually played with two-handed tapping) and rapid meter changes through odd time signatures. Think Chon, TTNG, or Polyphia.

But in the mid-to-late 90s, the music called “math rock” was much more patient. There were plenty of odd meters and angular guitar lines, but tempos were slower, more cerebral than maniacal, relying more on compositional experimentation than technical virtuosity. More interesting, much of this early math rock was born at the intersection of post-hardcore and post-rock. Think bands like Slint, Roadside Monument, late-era Frodus, or even Sunny Day Real Estate’s LP2.

One of the hidden gems of this scene is June of 44, who I have somehow entirely missed until the last few months.

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Record #751: The Appleseed Cast – Two Conversations (2003)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If I seem to be contradicting myself across the different narratives I tell about how I got into the Appleseed Cast, it’s because my relationship with the band is a little contradictory. We had many passings with one another before I finally fell in love with the project, and each of those feel like a fitting introduction for a story about how someone fell in love with one of their favorite bands.

But perhaps the most impressing of those introductions was the track “Fight Song,” a driving, passionate lament that cut me to the core when I first heard it. I was already familiar with the group after hearing them on a few Deep Elm compilations, but I had never dug further. “Fight Song” convinced me that they were a band that was worth the attention.

Unfortunately, it came at a time when I was setting aside the emo/punk/hardcore scene as a whole and branching out into other genres, and so I missed it at the time. Luckily, there’s always still time.

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Record #743: Entropy – Liminal (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Last summer, in the midst of global pandemic, some friends and I started a remote band called Bares His Teeth. As often happens when you write music together, we started sharing a lot of music with one another. We shared music that inspired us, songs that we wanted to emulate, and just songs we loved that bore no educational value to our own songwriting but we wanted to share anyway.

But towards the end of the year, the band chat became obsessed with one release in particular: the album Liminal by the small German outfit Entropy. It was hard to find, but that didn’t stop three-fifths of us from ordering it.

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Record #739: Fugazi – Instrument Soundtrack (1999)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Few bands are as monolithic as Washington DC post-hardcore demigods Fugazi. For decades, they have been celebrated for their ethical convictions as well as the severity of their output. So it comes as “No Surprise” that the documentary about one of the best bands in the world would be one of the greatest music films ever made.

The documentary Instrument is a massive work, following Fugazi from their early days in the DC hardcore scene to the recording of End Hits, and it captures a side of Fugazi that runs counter to their reputation as self-serious punk monks—most notably that they lived in a house together with no heat, surviving on a Steady Diet of Nothing but rice. The film instead shows a group of guys who love making music and have a lot of fun doing it.

Likewise, the soundtrack to that film captures the same playful attitude—which isn’t a word typically used to describe Fugazi.

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Record #734: The Casket Lottery – Short Songs for End Times (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Among most circles, emo is often spoken of dismissively. It is the cracking-voiced, limp-wristed realm of cringy, whingey, immature songwriters offering up poor-me missives put to noodly, poorly composted guitar parts and over-exuberant, off-time rhythm sections.

To anyone who buys into such a cartoonish critique of the genre, allow me to offer The Casket Lottery as a counterpoint. Formed as an offshoot of mathy metalcore heroes Coalesce, The Casket Lottery has always showcased emo at its very best, making great use of what made the genre so irresistable without allowing themselves to fall into the clichés that plague many of their contemporaries.

Short Songs for End Times, their second album since reuniting in 2010, is a punch straight to the gut that sets their brand of hard-hitting emotional punk on politics, tackling the division and absurdity of the post-truth era.

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Record #733: Boneflower – A(r)mour (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I have a working theory I’ve been testing the last few years. The premise is essentially that to the average layperson, their entire listening experience is driven by the vocals. Future Islands is essentially a good new wave/synthpop band, but many listeners suggest they defy labelling based on the deep, throaty growl of Samuel Herring. My own band—a heavy shoegaze/post rock outfit—is compared to Kings of Leon because my voice has a gritty, rock timbre. I’ve also heard a spacey garage rock band compared to Aretha Franklin because the singer was a black woman.

By the same token, consider Boneflower: a Spanish band that utilizes effects-heavy guitars, shifting drum rhythms, and grand instrumental compositions. Strip the vocals from it, and it could probably land somewhere near post rock (though admittedly a bit more aggressive than your typical post rock fare). Their own Bandcamp page uses the tags “alternative, post hardcore, post rock.

And yet, due to the techniques utilized by the lead singer, they are dubbed “screamo” but just about everyone who writes about them.

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Record #718: Dens – Taming Tongues (2020)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Over the last  few years of attending, playing, and even organizing vaguely “Christian” music festivals, I have come to a deep appreciation of Facedown Records—home of such excellent bands as My Epic, Everything In Slow Motion, Weathered, American Arson, Comrades, and many more excellent bands that often fly under the radar.

Another one of these bands is Dens,  whose set I heard through the floor while in a Chroma Artist Collective meet up during last year’s  Flood City Fest and cursed the timing of the thing.

But earlier this year, they released Taming Tongues, an absolute powerhouse of post hardcore that is at once anthemic and hard hitting.

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Record #713: Citizen – Everybody Is Going to Heaven (2015)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

As closely as young me followed emo, post hardcore, and the various other splinter groups in the broad punk umbrella, I lost touch somewhere for a while. Personally, I blame the Third Wave of emo, with its ranks of guylinered front men who were more concerned with fashion and deals with Hot Topic than they were with the music.

So aloof was I that I almost  completely missed several great bands—the Emo Revival, “the Wave,” and other scenes that resurrected the best parts of the music I grew up with with sincerity and skill.

I’ve seen Citizen’s name (and albums) for almost a decade now. But it took finding this album in my local used shop to spur my curiosity to finally pull them up on Spotify.

And boy, am I ever glad I did.

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