The Ladderback

From Last.fm

The Ladderback was born in a garage in Rocky Mount, N.C. in 1996. After recording a demo and playing tons of shows in the area, they moved to Raleigh to practice and work on recording their first full length album. Once the first record, "Honest, I Swear, It Was the Turnstyles", was recorded and released they parted ways with founder/guitarist "B". "J","D", and "C" soon got to work on writing and recording the second record, "Introduction to Departures". Soon sfter the writing and recording for that record was done "C" left the band to pursue other life endeavors. "J" and "D" were left to figure out the future of the band. They decided to continue on. They found a local drummer, "J", who is now known as Lucian Thorr from the mighty Valient Thorr. Once he was trained in the ways of the Ladderback they began writing a third record and went on thier first major tour. Once the tour was over and the songs for "Trigger Themes" were almost complete they got "B" to rejoin. Once he was back the songs quickly took shape and the record became the masterpiece it is. He quit the band soon after it's recording. After that, the boys took the show to Japan where they were welcomed as heroes. Women bowed before them. Men cried and asked for forgiveness for even thinking of gazing into their eyes. They conquered that island…but love conquers all. "J" met a wonderful woman while on tour there and they soon married and moved into an awesome apartment in Kyoto. The LB was no more. But we have there records…and those lucky enough to see them and party with them have their stories.

I found out about this band from finding their split with Marion. I'm not sure why I've never heard of them as they seem to be fairly prolific. There's a bandcamp which has most of their releases. I'm making this post to share some of their splits which also show some other obscure bands.

The Ladderback/Legend of the Overfiend Split 7" 1999

Okay so, just right out of the way The Ladderback are pretty over the top on this record. Just super angsty late 90's emo. They seem pretty upset haha. It's pretty good though. I can't find any info on Legend of the Overfiend, but they mix emo with some black metal, almost similar to Tears of Avarel (I keep forgetting to post them). It's pretty interesting.

The Ladderback/Marion 1999

I talked about this in my Marion post, but the Ladderback are pretty solid here. Less angsty than their earlier split. Marion definitely wins this one though.

The Ladderback/Five Kinds Square 2002

I'm kind of mixed on The Ladderback here. It's a little different. The vocalist almost sounds like the vocalist of Seeing Means More here. Overall it's not bad. Five Kind of Square are a pretty obscure Japanese band. To be honest I'm not that big of a fan of a lot of Japanese emo, but they are alright. A little generic though. I did find this really cool blog on Japanese emo + zines here though.

That's about it. Checkout their bandcamp for the full lengths.