Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged emo

The North End

In a time when emo hasn’t enjoyed the same popularity as it did ten years ago, this six-man band is happy doing its thing. Hailing from Midwestern America Joie De Vivre draws a good amount of influence from the northern part of the region for lyrics and the wintry scenes for their most recent album, The North End. For anyone who’s been to college and listened to local/house bands, The North End is certain to make you nostalgic. Granted, the album is a clean recording and the packaging that of a label-backed-band.

Ghosts

Ghosts is a gripping, ten song, posthumous love letter from Brooklyn’s Nakatomi Plaza. Aptly named for a record released after the band’s break up, the album comes with a booklet of liner notes filled with blurry black and white photos and reflections from each of the members about their time in the band.

New Best Friends

When first hearing Mansions’ sound, a rare and unlikely mutation of early Death Cab for Cutie and standard emo rock band hybrid creeps to mind.

Loney Dear (4/5/2009)

It is so ridiculously obvious why the kids are flipping out about this impressively under-the-radar Nordic crooner. It doesn’t matter if gnat-attention-span hipsters can’t name his influences, the history that brought us to now. It doesn’t matter if they forget the album tomorrow (though it’s clearly their loss). What does matter is when amazing music comes forth. What matters is keeping it in our hearts once the fair-weather fans have moved onto the next big college radio hit. When I was coming up, Polyvinyl was a key player among emo purveyors.

Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair

This young five-piece screamo-hardcore band from Grand Rapids, Michigan, whose album name comes from an Asian folktale, are trying something new. Many of their songs have progressively long intros, which is unusual for their genre of music.

Elephant Shell

A college friend of mine was fond of saying that any album he found boring, underperforming, or straight-up bland – music that failed to move him to even the mildest active like or dislike – was “really mediocre.” Discs that merit this special kiss of death are usually just not very good. Sometimes they’re over-hyped, so-hot-right-now sophomore efforts, or ambitious projects that fell short of achieving the kind of transcendent finished product of which their creators seemed so capable when the first press release hit. You want a wrecking ball, this music barely leaves a mark.
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