Keep What You Have Built Up Here
an exploration of fourth-wave emo (and the third of three articles about emo)
After the lofty commercial heights of the Fueled By Ramen era, emo soon became a dirty word among both the record buying public and bands working in the punk/pop-punk/indie-rock region. Some bands wanted to distance themselves from the artistic excess of mid-period Panic! At The Disco, others wanted to avoid the tabloid press coverage that followed Pete Wentz like the plague. The average American music fan simply grew tired of the genre’s trappings, moving on to more and more hyper-fragmented subgenres.
Whenever a bigger musical movements wears out its welcome, though, there’s nearly always a reactionary revival happening in opposition. Younger siblings latch on to their older siblings’ freshly discarded music, thrift stores fill up with donated albums, and contrarian kids find new ways to be ironic with disfavored media. Emo at its root is built on a DIY ethos, resurrecting hand-me-down instruments, song structures, and melodies and inventing new and exciting ways to deconstruct old tropes.
Everything old is new again, and the cycle in music (or pop culture in general) seems to run on about a twenty-five year circuit. The British invasion led to the Paisley Underground, Motown soul led to neo-soul, and Midwest Emo was reborn in the emo revival.
Hewing much closer to Promise Ring than Panic, or Sunny Day Real Estate over Senses Fail, the 2010’s emo revival is typically less distorted or aggressive than screamo, while it’s also less focused on commercial appeal. A stronger strain of art-rock and new wave aesthetic permeates the reborn genre, deriving as much from Gang of Four or Wire as Fugazi or Jawbreaker.
Today’s article will be shorter than the other two; I believe that it’s hard to evaluate art in it’s own timeframe, and that only with age can we determine it’s lasting quality. I also freely admit that I’m not as familiar with these bands as I am their older cousins. A recent article from the Washington Post suggested that your tastes in music are built between the ages of ten and thirty, with whatever you listened to at fourteen having the most impact. After your thirties you can add artists and genres, but they will not have as lasting an impression as those introduced in your adolescence. Since the artists in this article are products of my late twenties at best, I’m grasping at straws for most of it. We’ll find out together how well my research skills are.
Let’s get to it, y’all.
A. Broken Cigarettes - Glocca Morra
Miami-Dade’s own Glocca Morra made a brief but glorious appearance in emo from 2009 to 2015, marrying noodly, spindly indie guitar to shouted gang-style hardcore vocals, talking about feelings all the while. They change tempos, switch from clean vocals to growls, and wail during the pre-choruses in their best Thursday style.
B. Constant Headache - Joyce Manor
The last song from Joyce Manor’s 2010 self-titled debut established them as a force for Emo Tumblr, showcasing the same power-pop roots as Rivers Cuomo’s brainchild. It’s not a surprise that Joyce Manor sprang from the same Southern California surroundings as Weezer, drawing from the same pool of references with a smidge more Rollins Band for good measure. Melodies and hooks abound, but with an undercurrent of resigned melancholy.
C. The Magdalene - Foxing
Who likes gothic sensibilities layered upon Catholic guilt about losing your virginity? Have I got a song for you! St. Louis’s Foxing lays bare the anguish of religious turmoil while incorporating shifting percussion from arena-rock snares to 808 handclaps, Eventide-honed spacey guitar, and Johnny Marr chimes. Conor Murphy’s strangled falsetto cuts through the mix like Elizabeth Glaser and Kate Bush’s long lost love child.
D. the view - Oso Oso
Oso Oso is the product of Long Island native Jade Lilitri, representing the softer and more subtle side of emo. His song “the view” embodies the loose-strummed single-coil twang that comes from Death Cab or American Football, but with steadier tempos and more accessible vocals. Jade’s lilting vocal cascades into delicate jazz chords, seasoned with tremolo and a touch of reverb. The tinge of pop-punk sneer in his inflection is the only touch of aggression, melding into the whole affair like the final touch of lemon juice on the dressed salad.
E. Guardian - Tigers Jaw
If I’m recording vocals for a personal project, I always want a combination of feminine and masculine energy. Tigers Jaw, with both Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins contributing singing, embodies a wonderful dichotomy of optimism married with sadness. Their 2017 release Spin marked the first time Collins contributed songwriting to the group, and it adds another several dimensions to their sound. “Guardian” melds their two voices in close harmony, separating the lines by no more than a second or third interval to create depth while cutting through the ringing guitars.
F. January 10th, 2014 - The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die
I’m not retyping the name of this band over and over, but it is nice to see that the trend of long song titles in the genre extends to band names too. The band in question was formed in Connecticut in 2009 before changing lineups multiple times. Their particular brand of spacey, nearly ethereal emo made it’s full-length debut in 2013 with Whenever, If Ever that served as a soft relaunch of the genre. 2015’s Harmfulness saw a significantly altered band, but their lead single “January 10th, 2014” continued their post-rock influenced reverb-drenched ways. If Explosions in the Sky formed a Jimmy Eat World cover band, this is what they would sound like.
G. Caution - Tiny Moving Parts
Two brothers and their cousin formed Tiny Moving Parts in Benson, Minnesota in 2008 while still in junior high. Their sound draws comparisons with green-era Weezer, Sunny Day Real Estate, and more than a little guitar theatrics akin to an amped up American Football. “Caution”, from 2018’s Swell is an anthemic rocker with vibes from Motion City Soundtrack, just replacing Moog synthesizers with two-handed tapping. They efficiently marry emo-pop with math-rock in one slickly produced package.
H. Hooped Earings - The Front Bottoms
Brian Sella’s pop-punk sneer defines the sound of New Jersey’s The Front Bottoms, in conjunction with loose folk-inspired strums of an acoustic guitar. A thrumming steady pulse from the woody rhythm instrument fills space and blends with booming tom-tom beats to propel “Hooped Earings (sic)” forward. Their mix of emo with folk-punk could sound like a mishmash of 2010’s indie radio, but it somehow works.
I. Lossed Over - Cloakroom
Sweeping riffs and expansive distortion co-opted from sludge metal lay a foundation for Cloakroom’s plaintive wails much like mid-period Guided By Voices. There’s no reason that this group of Indiana natives should be able to combine the two, yet it all comes together. Perhaps it’s the dark shoegaze-y choruses or the booming echo-filled drums that somehow coalesce into a gothic soundscape of depressive ambience. I could argue that it’s closer to post-hardcore or space rock than emo, but let’s not quibble (quibble away in the comments below).
J. If It’s Bad News It Can Wait - Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate)
If you were designing a band that parodied all the trappings of emo, you couldn’t do much better than Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate): long meandering song titles, nasal vocals, bass-heavy mixes, chiming guitars, shifting time signatures, and lyrics that sacrifice traditional song construction for the sake of introspective narrative. “If It’s Bad News It Can Wait” tells a story of a beach trip that ends in tragedy, throwing off the shackles of adolescence to enrobe oneself in the realities of adulthood’s inevitable loss. It’s not a typical emo song, but it hits all the marks in a relatively unique way.
As usual, if you enjoyed what I’ve written here, please…
I also take suggestions, so if you have a topic you want covered let me know and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve got vague ideas for the next few, but I will definitely push them aside for something that tickles the old brain banana.