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writing |
| emo diaries 1-12 review (it's in reverse sry) |
The Emo Diaries compilations are probably my favorite cds available anywhere in the entire world. They’re consistently quality, featuring bands both known and unknown, and serve as probably the best jumping-off point into the world of emo rock anyone could ever have. The next tracks I talk about are going to be my personal favorites from each of the 12 CDs: |
| Summer Hours - Still With Me |
We made it. Volume 12, the final release, and Still With Me by Summer Hours, the final track on said final release. This song might sound familiar, and that’s because Deep Elm kind of bent their own no-repeat rules by picking this track. Summer Hours is La Pieta, the band I featured off Volume 9, with an evolved sound. It’s the same sort of lopey, balladic indie pop that was featured previously, but the already thoughtful lyrics have had 7 years to get even deeper, and the band’s added a horn section. A memorial to someone beautiful and gone, it's a perfect fit for the last album in this incredibly important and beloved series that kind of fell to the wayside. As the vocals fade out, a messy, slow sax solo moves to take its place and play the series into the sunset. It’s bittersweet and wonderful and about as perfect of an ending as you could hope for, even if they technically shouldn’t have been featured. |
| Andy Tanner - The Ghostman |
My pick off volume 11 is The Ghostman by Andy Tanner. The name in the credits makes it seem like a solitary singer-songwriter affair, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Ghostman is an incredibly intricate, cinematic piece of work. Peaking cymbals and rising synth lines, alongside horns and pianos make this track feel like a mashup of post-rock and emo. You can really just feel the whole song in your chest; It’s got a satisfying weight to it. Everything has volume and intensity, with the mix focused on crushing guitars and the breathy vocals of Tanner. There’s a female background vocalist that really helps to add texture during some of the quieter parts, and the piano and horns work around the guitars to fill out the sound so well. This is a really well-fleshed out track, almost reminding me of a less emo Brave Little Abacus. This is my favorite volume out of the final 3, and this track is basically the entire reason why. |
| Lost On Purpose - Friends |
Volume 10 is probably the worst out of the entire series. It’s just super consistently meh. In keeping with this, Friends by Lost on Purpose is my least favorite favorite track. It feels like an incredible foundation for a song, but never fully capitalizes on the potential laid out in those first few chords. The vocals are breathy and cracked in a cool way, the guitar is really full and pretty, and the bass does its job, but the song doesn’t really go anywhere. A core component of Emo is the slow buildup to eventual release, and this song has almost no build and no release at all. It elevates a little bit at the end with vocal layering and some very slight changes in the guitar, but all the good that does is negated by the repetitive, shallow, and honestly kind of boring lyrics. This song could be really cool if it had a fleshed out rhythm section and better songwriting, but it just barely falls flat of the finishing line in its current state. |
| La Pieta - More Of The Sky |
Volume 9 is even more separated from the genre’s roots, for the better and the worse. There’s some country on here, as well as some super synth heavy stuff that I don’t really like. One delightful standout, though, is La Pieta’s More Of The Sky. A soft indie ballad that focuses on crisp drums and reverbed guitars, it’s a sharp departure from the rest of the album’s hard-edged emo. The unintrusive, sparse instrumentals and call-and-response vocals bring to mind the softer side of Yo La Tengo’s discography. It’s simple, well-written, and more than a little sad. The lyrics are poetic and abstract, but not in a way that obscures what the track’s really about. A suburban love song, lines about the “tall warm buildings crushing down” and seeing “more of the sky” signal an intense feeling of claustrophobia in the city. Just like Regret, the last song I wrote about, this is a much more mature take on the emo formula. Hating the place you grew up is an all-too-common trope in music like this, but the writing makes this cliche feel fresh and new. By telling the listener less and encouraging them to fill in the gaps, More Of The Sky feels a lot more meaningful and intense. |
| Day Action Band - Regret |
Volume 8 really shows off how nebulous the term “Emo” really is, with saxophone solos, acoustic tracks, and tracks from all over the world. Regret from Day Action Band is delightfully free of any of the instrumental or vocal cliches that come to define the genre. The slight rasp and repeated phrases remind me more of early experimental tracks from artists like Laraaji, and the pared-down synths and acoustic guitar sadness reminds me more of Dave Bixby than anyone who could be considered “Emo.” Still, that rawness and pain is still there. I mean, the song literally starts with “I know that having children won’t keep me alive.” It still fits the genre, but it’s much more mature. This is a song about reaching middle age, far removed from the teenage love stories that make up the majority of the emo pantheon. Instead of riding a bike past a girl’s house, the lyrics lament new countertops and quiet nights at home. Both instrumentally and lyrically, Regret is full of a quieter, but somehow more intense sadness than any other track on this compilation, and for that reason, it’s my pick. |
| Waterpistol - This Is What I Get |
Volume 7 is an excellent return to form for the series, and out of all the wonderful tracks on this compilation, Waterpistol’s This Is What I Get stands out. Forgotten in the modern day but well-known in the early 2000s, Waterpistol reminds me of a slightly more buttoned-up, emocore Penfold. Similarly strained and corny-in-a-good-way vocals mesh seamlessly with transitions from twinkly and slow to distorted and driving to create a sort of emo rock chicken soup for the soul. They aren’t doing anything particularly groundbreaking but god damn is it really, really good. My favorite sections on this track are the sections where the band builds up to that inevitable release, drums thumping and crashing while the vocals slowly grow in both volume and emotional intensity. I’m just a sucker for those telecaster arpeggios and sad lyrics about someone not loving you back. Really a great track, check it out. |
| Barcode - Kent |
Volume 6 is one of the weaker entries in the series, but Kent by Barcode stands out from the rest of the (honestly kind of bad) album. Another left-field European band, Barcode does an excellent job of hiding that they’re so far from the birthplace of emo. The vocals on Kent are reminiscent of Dave Grohl, and the instrumentation brings to mind The Promise Ring or Texas Is The Reason. It isn’t all just shameless repurposing of other bands, though. They secure their own unique niche with a synth coming in later in the song, and some excellent layering of instruments and a background vocalist near the end. One thing this song is really good at is creating that slow buildup, even though the song already starts with loud instrumentals and a driving drum beat. You still feel that catharsis, that emotional release, even though the song never really has a moment where it becomes abundantly clear that this is the section where it gets loud and crashy and complex, it just keeps building. At the end of the song, everything slams to a halt, and the band plays out to a simple melody of a twinkly lead and bassy rhythm guitar. Barcode is really interesting, as the band is essentially a revolving door. They’ve been through a ton of configurations, and most of the time they sound like rage against the machine with an eastern european accent, so this song was a positive surprise. |
| Kerith Ravine - Two Empty Bottles |
Volume 5 moves into a lot heavier territory, kind of exploring the often-overlooked boundaries that Emo has with metal. Kerith Ravine’s Two Empty Bottles combines the tone-drenched, reverb heavy rock of bands like The Smashing Pumpkins with twinklier, more contemplative emo sounds to an almost perfect degree. The call and response male-female vocals add another layer to the relatively simple instrumentation, but where this song truly shines is its structure. Constantly tumbling from quiet to loud and back again, you’re kept on your toes and waiting for anything to clue you in to the next sonic direction the track’s gonna take. The second half of the song is broken up with some half-time sections and a twinkly little interlude to keep it feeling fresh, before that twinkling slowly turns menacing and the song is launched into a violent crescendo of drums and distortion. When it ends, you realize all of a sudden that you just listened to a 7-minute song, and it felt like 3 minutes passed by. That's a hallmark of the best music, where you get so lost in the sound that you essentially time travel. While Kerith Ravine never really broke into the mainstream, most of their members went on to start successful alt-rock group Lovedrug, and some of their music still sounds like this, so check em out. |
| The John Doe Band - Supergirl |
Volume 4 takes an incredibly international approach to the genre, and my favorite band comes from Sweden. I’ve been a fan of the John Doe Band and Supergirl in specific since long before I fully explored the Emo Diaries, and this was one of the songs that inspired me to start this whole series. While it’s always being pushed forward by a driving drum beat, the track still retains some older emo sensibilities with dynamic changes and some strained vocals near the end. Most of the time, though, Supergirl is far into emocore territory with layered vocals and guitar riffs reminiscent of Texas Is The Reason or Sunny Day Real Estate. It isn’t a knock-off though, with some pretty cool and unique touches like the tambourine and the “doo doo doo doo doooooo” section firmly placing it in its own special niche. It’s really a shame that there aren’t many tracks like this on their other releases, but the split they did with legendary Swedish emo band Far Apart is still definitely worth checking out. While it came out in 98’, “At The Kerb” is an excellent, excellent track that follows a more early 90s formula. Please, listen to the John Doe Band. |
| Penfold - Microchip |
Volume 3 is probably my highlight of the whole series, because it focuses heavily on the late 90s “emocore” scene, my favorite raindrop on the whole emo umbrella. It’s a little weird then, that my favorite track is Penfold’s “Microchip,” an almost comically emo ballad that has all of the LOUD-quiet-LOUD transitions and high pitched vocals about being sexually frustrated that come to mind when you think of corny pop punk tracks. The difference comes in how raw it all feels, the overflowing sadness and anger that emanates from this track almost canceling out any criticism I would have. After a twinkly intro, the guitars harmonize together into a wave of distortion and grit, with drums thumping and crashing their way through the low roar. Interestingly, the track is actually pretty high-tempo, but the pared-back drums and 3/4s time signature make it feel a lot slower and more contemplative. Penfold stands up there with the greatest of the scene, and while they may have had a relatively short career, the amount of people influenced by their music has been astronomical. |
| Buford - After Dark |
I’ve noticed that I’m not actually the biggest fan of straight up old school “real” emo, with my tastes settling somewhere on the boundary that the genre share with punk and hardcore. That’s reflected in my pick off the second volume, Buford’s After Dark. Unlike the rest of the compilation, After Dark keeps a consistent, driving beat, with incredibly fast and repetitive drums reminiscent of melodic punk. The drumming is definitely the defining feature of the track, with constant half-time transitions and some really impressive bass and cymbal work. The actual instrument itself is mixed just right, snappy and high-pitched, making an impact without being too loud or grating. Away from the set, the guitars engage in some really interesting call-and-response layering and the bass lays down the foundation for the whole thing, endlessly fast and consistent to match the drums. The incredibly strained vocals of Sharif Dumani are probably the weakest point in the entire track, but he does a good job conveying emotion and hits some pretty cool notes during the chorus, so I can’t really complain. It’s not really what you listen to emo for, anyway. Technical skill and songwriting that follows the traditional mold of what’s “good” take a backseat to the festering, raw sentiment behind the track, and After Dark has that in droves. |
| Pogoh - Friend X |
We’ll start it off with Friend X by Pogoh, a standout of the mostly male-fronted, midwest-focused first volume. It was a daring move on the part of the label to let this track end the album off, as it’s a pretty sharp musical departure from everything before it. Even compared to other female-fronted emo like Endive, Rainer Maria, and Eldritch Anisette, frontwoman Susie Richardson’s vocals are a lot more powerful, a lot more accusatory, and a lot more angry. While the instrumental is loud and driving, her voice cuts clear through the fold and tells a typically emo story, condemning a friend that didn’t really end up being a friend after all. My favorite touch is the trick ending this track has. Richardson’s voice quiets to a whisper, the guitars resolve, and then all of a sudden a crushing wave of thumpy drums and undulating strings arrive at the shore, washing away every previous notion you held about the track. While the first “ending” has guitars resolving to a (slightly bittersweet) chord, the real finish to the track never resolves at all. It reflects both the story told in it, and how much I come back and think about this song every day. |
| Endive - Voice Without A Face |
After my trip to Indiana, I wanted to take a deeper look into the unique music scene surrounding IU and IUPUI. Through trips to record stores (thanks td’s cd’s and lp’s), a lot of youtube searching, and some emo rock history lessons from my dad, I found out that there was an incredibly active local scene that’s lived on even to today, evidenced by streetlights covered in flyers and scrubbed-off band stickers on every handrail. My shining star and personal holy grail of the Indy scene is Endive’s promo tape, featuring some of the best emo/hardcore that I’ve ever listened to. My favorite track from the incredibly short-lived band is Voice Without a Face. A hushed intro of twinkly guitars gives way to a melody of impossibly high pitched vocals, quiet but intricate drums, and louder strings. Then, without warning, the song’s thrown into a violent roar of sound and the tempo picks up to an impossibly fast speed. The feedbacked wail of the guitar masks just how beautiful and intricate the entire composition is, with some incredibly technical bass playing and beautiful vocals. It slows down once more, and then speeds back up into the final section. Like the sun emerging from the clouds during a rainstorm, the track is just as noisy and intense, but feels hopeful and victorious at the same time. Truly an odyssey, Voice Without a Face is an incredibly underrated track that should have a place among the pantheon of emo rock. If anyone has this cassette please fucking contact me I will pay you a lot of money!!! |
| Foul Play Productions - Risk |
Downtempo is an almost reviled genre in the electronic music community. The late 90s pop-culture falloff of jungle meant that artists like 4Hero and Bukem turned to incredibly commercially successful (and commercially friendly) tracks that attempted to bridge the gap between waiting room music and rave bangers. Rhodes piano, acid jazz vocals, and breaks that sounded a little bit more “natural” were all part of the standard operating procedure, but what happens when you take those downtempo essentials and crank the BPM back up to jungle levels? Risk, an incredibly unique and interesting track from the early hardcore innovators Foul Play. A heavy emphasis on jazz and the echoey instruments employed bring this somewhere near intelligent DNB territory, but it doesn’t really fit that mold perfectly. Instead, it lays in a perfect middleground, picking and choosing from only the best aspects of each genre that it takes influence from. Truly an inspirational track. |
| Houseboy - Okay |
I tend to gravitate towards the emo side of 90s rock, but Okay (and this entire album) have single handedly sent me down a melodic punk rabbit hole. The genre as a whole is a massive contradiction, this intensely technical playing contrasting with the fuck-you attitude of it’s biggest stars. Even though the speed is impressive and (for me) unattainable, the music itself is incredibly easy to listen to, infectious, and addictive. This album is constantly on repeat, and it really, really helps me focus. The incredibly controlled sensory overload kind of forces me to ignore any other distractions because 3% out of the functioning 4% of my brain is occupied by the endless screaming vocals and relentless drum beat. The three hamsters that live in my head like this one a lot. |
| John Beltran - Flex |
Ten Days Of
Blue is a masterpiece. Everybody knows that, shown through consistent spots on electronic music best-ofs and the fact that John Beltran was able to recover after his disastrous follow up album. While most reviews tend to focus on the softer, ambient techno tracks that play for the rest of the album, I want to spotlight the one track that really stands out. One key detail separates Flex from every other song on this record, and it’s the drums. Most tracks on the album slowly build until the drums enter, and even then they enter softly, almost unnoticed. Flex hits you right from the start with these incredibly heavy, peaky, industrial beats that just floor you. They’re seriously heavy and seriously loud, but Beltran uses them wisely. They’re constantly shifting and changing, keeping it all fresh. On an album where drums otherwise take backstage, it’s really interesting to me that the first track sounds the way it does. I think because of this abrasive, rebellious attitude, it’s my top pick on the record. |
| Ian O'Brien - Midday Sunshine |
I really, really love nu-jazz. The soft, sophisticated stylings and just general sleekness of it all has appealed to me for most all of my life. I really love uplifting ambient music too, the soundtrack to my reading sessions and (distracted) studies. Ian O’Brien’s Midday Sun takes the best of both worlds and seamlessly mashes them together. You seriously can’t start this track up without smiling just a little bit - I feel it right now. The twinkling rhodes piano and swelling synth pads never fail to inspire, with it all being kept fresh through a swingin’ drum groove and ample sound effects fading in and out. My favorite moment on the track has to be when the strings come in about halfway through, making the song feel a lot wider and more expansive. The listener feels like they just crested a hill, and have been rewarded by a beautiful view of flutes, violins, and synths. Midday Sun is a staple of my dog walks, late night drives, and time sitting on a park bench thinking about nothing at all. I don’t see that changing for the rest of my life. |
| Key Of Soul - Shine |
Previously, we covered the very origins of deep house with Can You Feel It. Now, we’re moving into a track that I believe perfected the genre, Shine by Key Of Soul. A side project of underrated electronic pioneer Dan Curtin, Key of Soul eschewed his more experimental side and focused on groove above everything else. The same TR-909 drums and Juno-60 synth pads are there, but instead of being a static track, Shine evolves constantly. While there aren’t any significant key changes or differences in instrumentation, there is an incredibly subtle shifting throughout the entire song. Not one section sounds the same as another, but you could listen to any one and be happy with it repeating throughout the entire song. It’s all tied together by occasional vocals coming in from Japanese R&B singer Itoko, giving the song a little, well, soul. As the track moves on, it starts getting more and more complex, but never suffers for it. Every beat, every hit, every synth stab is put in a place that just sounds right. |
| 12 Rods - Mexico |
Mexico by 12 Rods is what I wish today’s new wave revival sounded like. You’ve probably heard the grating sonic torture that is whatever that “piss in my face” song is, or the constant stream (like piss) of tiktokers claiming they’ve made a new genre, when what they really made was a Cure song but really bad with 8 FL studio tape distortion effects applied. Mexico is truly in its own genre, a beautiful bastardization of space rock, post rock, and new wave that blows me away every time I hear it. The gay? EP is one of rock music’s greatest achievements, and the beautifully fluctuating groove and sprawling synths on Mexico make this track the crown jewel. The thing that stands out to me the most is just how crisp and perfect the instrumentation is. The guitars are dripping in tone, the bass has a wonderful, percussive attack, and the drums thump and crash their way through the track in a way that makes you feel as if there’s a whole orchestra behind you. Ryan Olcott’s vocals dance their way through these instruments in a way that really makes you wonder how he can sound so monotone and so beautiful at the same time. It isn’t like it’s a very unique point of view, but I truly believe that this song is as close to perfect as a song can get. |
| Mr. Fingers - Can You Feel It |
For a short period in the late 80s and early 90s, the midwest was a mecca for the biggest innovators in electronic. Far removed from their Motown heyday, Detroit became home to the vibrant techno scene, and building off of their disco movement, Chicago became well-known as the birthplace of house. It was in this fertile landscape that Larry Heard (aka Mr. Fingers) decided to put down the drumsticks and pick up the TR-909 drum machine. After just a few days at the studio, he emerged with 3 tracks that would completely revolutionize house music. My favorite is Can You Feel It. This track created deep house, and is still one of the best songs in the genre. Part of why it’s such a wonderful listen is Heard’s amazing use of space. If you really listen, the track is incredibly sparse, just drums, bass, and pads. What matters, though, is that each one of these instruments is used to accentuate and build off of each other. The bass is so inimitably thumpy, the drums constantly shifting and grooving, and the pads providing a constant through all this change. Even though Heard wrote it when the genre was in its infancy, Can You Feel It laid an incredible blueprint for a future years to come. |
| Relief - Levin |
Germany is well known for its massive punk rock scene, but the global focus on hardcore kind of overshadows an incredibly important moment in music history: the German emo revolution of the late 90s. Levin is a shining example of that era, refined English vocals and driving guitars appearing through a fog of beautiful noise. Traditional song structure and some heavy instrumentals coming in early make this track endlessly listenable, but every time you hit repeat, you discover some new intricacy in the guitars or vocals that seemingly wasn’t there before. In this way, Relief occupies a similar space to American compatriots Texas is The Reason and Sunny Day Real Estate, but experienced none of the mainstream success those bands did, which is a massive shame. Sometimes shit just works out like that, but at least the incredible online community that’s formed around music like this has ensured that anyone in the world can appreciate this amazing record. |
| Hello Kitty - Chu-Chu |
As the penultimate song on The Cowboy's Plane Game compilation fades out in a feedbacked wail, you expect the ender to be just as hardcore as the rest of the album. Instead, you’re greeted by the simple, warm chords, and serene vocals of Hello Kitty’s yet-unknown frontwoman. Acoustic guitar and a quiet bassline weave together to create an incredibly tangible sense of melancholy, while simultaneously encouraging peaceful reminiscence. Vocals about obeying your parents and the inclusion of the titular childhood rhyme reinforce the theme of lost youth present in so many emo recordings, but there’s no buildup. There’s no tension behind the scenes, no pipe waiting to burst. Chu-Chu is just a remembrance of simpler times, but not necessarily better ones. I think that makes it all the more impactful. |
| The House Crew - Euphoria (Nino's Dream) |
This song puts me to sleep, but not in a bad way. As referenced by the fact that it’s Nino’s Dream Remix, this record is a wild, beautiful, and slightly confusing journey straight out of REM sleep. A lot of the breakbeat hardcore genre falls into the all-too-common trap of simple, repetitive, piano melodies, and thudding breakbeats, a formula that creates some excellent club tracks, but doesn’t really translate to the home stereo. Euphoria is elevated from that norm by its use of airy synths, complex webs of vocal samples, and a constant evolution present throughout the entire track. The songwriting really stands out: even with its six and a half minute runtime, it’s over before you even realize it. This can most likely be traced back to Nino’s day job as a producer and writer for tons of dance music’s biggest stars - he even lifted vocal stems from a track he wrote a few years prior for Natasha Mayne. The only real gripe I have with this track is that it may stray a little too far into home-listening territory, with sections where the drums cut out and the key suddenly changes making the track a little less danceable. All in all, Nino’s cut of Euphoria is a prime example of the breakbeat hardcore genre and basically the exact opposite of a nightmare. |
