Late 00s pure skramz from CMHWAK...
Monday, October 12, 2020
Another Sevenfold
Okay, I love this. Perfect late 90s emo. That twangy low-fi guitar sound is absolute heaven to me. Check out angry emo nerd's post from a few years ago.
Sunday, October 11, 2020
Dolorous Canter
Chicago's own Dolorous Canter have dropped an extremely impressive EP on the world by way of For What You Thought Was Once Dead. Seemingly drawing from equal parts Funeral Diner and Yaphet Kotto, the band's EP unleashes close to half an hour's worth of cathartic screamed vocals and intense, intricate rhythms. Fusing terrific, discordant instrumentation with extremely intense vocals and lyrics to match, the band immediately establishes themselves in a positive light.
"To East Ontario" is a short but intense blast of power and conviction. The band has an extremely raw yet polished sound to them. That's not to say the music is overproduced, which couldn't be further from the truth, only that the raw, bare sound perfectly suits the vocals and instrumentation, and just sounds like an absolutely complete package. All four members of the band heavily contribute, doing vocals as well as playing their own respective instruments. Canter make solid use of the loud/soft dynamic, offering long instrumental passages that build and build until finally unloading in a spastic burst of screaming fury. "Unusable Signal" is the perfect example for this, as there's more than a couple transition phases between the different tempos, and it's all extremely fluid. The relentless pounding, starts and stops of the guitar and drums towards the end lead brilliantly into a whirlwind of quick and dissonant guitar work.
Still, Dolorous Canter have a much more subtle side, begging to be released.
And on the eleven-minute "From Tokyo to Stockholm," a much more reserved band is seen. The rhythms and instrumentation are still tight as ever, but the vocals are in part sung in this song, which is ultimately my biggest gripe with the album. I appreciate their willingness to change things up, but to be frank, the singing is pretty poor. Luckily for them, it accounts for only a few of the song's eleven minutes, the rest being taken up by a solid variation of guitar tones and harmonies.
This EP really presents a lot to like from the Chicago four-piece. They have an extremely solid grasp on every aspect that makes this kind of music enjoyable. It's urgent, intense, raw and visceral, and every possible element was dealt with in a precise manner, so that there's no lack of flow, no loose ends, nothing unnecessary. Fans of either of the bands that I originally cited as influences here will do well to track down a copy of this; you will not be disappointed.
Well there's this epic review along with a few others on the internet. For all this media exposure it's surprising that there is nothing out there on this band and finding stuff on this band is difficult. I think the Yaphet Kotto description is somewhat apt, they play a mainstream "emocore" type of sound. I wouldn't say it's anything special, but very well recorded and surprisingly obscure.
Treadwell
- Andrew Reizuch / bass, vocals
- Matt Howze / drums
- Rusty Cavender / guitar
- George Navarro / guitar, vocals
Most notable for having three of these members going on to somewhat more famous band Le Shok. If you've listened to Le Shok, you can hear a tiny bit of influence in this band, sort of a 90s Gravity sound. The last time I looked for info on this band I swear there was a blogger out there with some actual info, but I'm failing at finding that this time around. This should be all they've released including:
Untitled 7inch 1997
Pour it into our Bodies 6inch 1999
Bomb Diffusion 7inch 2000
16 / Treadwell Split 7inch 2000
Abort Captain Part 2
I'm making this post as a second part to my 2016 post of Abort Captain so it can get a bit more attention. Just copying some basic info that I had there.
Started out as a two piece from Raleigh, NC in 2004, ended up as a full band. Straight forward hardcore in the vein of JFFB, Neil Perry, ETC. Broke up in 2005.
two members now in Wolverines.
It's decent stuff. Bears some resemblance to Wolverines, but less jangly and more generic emo sounding. Check it out, and if anyone has more tracks, please comment below or something.
These are two tracks that I came across a while ago now, one being off their myspace and the other that I tracked down on soulseek. I think this band is kind of underrated in a way, at least compared to Wolverines. Wish I had any idea of what they actually had out there, at least according to Last.fm I seem to have most of it between these two posts.
Harmony Set
Harmony Set was a short lived screamo band from Boston, Massachesetts. They formed in the winter of 2001 & featured Gibby of Panic, The Trouble & MakeOutClub fame. The band recorded four songs of which three went on to a demo cassette limited to only 17 copies that were given to friends after their first and only show at "Fuck Fest" in New Bedford.
I ripped this one track off myspace a long time ago, and never got around to posting it. Managed to find another track posted on youtube along with some information. There definitely are a few more tracks of a demo out there, which I will hopefully come across at some point. In the meantime check this out.
Demo (missing songs)
To Drown Her Sorrows
This is from the same youtuber that uploaded Best Left Forgotten. All that they seem to say is that it's "South Dakota metalcore/screamo band, members of Nodes of Ranvier" This is not really sweet init sound like Best Left Forgotten, instead it's bordering on shitty metalcore. Not very good, but still kind of interesting.
Vikings!
Vikings! is a three piece hardcore punk/screamo band from Hagerstown, MD. They formed in the winter of ‘07/’08 and began playing shows in mid 2008. They have released a debut EP (2008 EP) which was recorded by Mike of Pianos Become the Teeth at the Crawlspace Studio in Eastern Maryland. They have played shows with bands like Algernon Cadwallader, The Blue Letter, We Were Skeletons, Nationale, Fine Lines, Pianos Become the Teeth, Age Sixteen, Sawhorse, Debelia Debelia, and L’antietam. Their sound has been compared to bands like Envy, Funeral Diner, I Hate Myself, and even Explosions in the Sky.
It seems the person who runs the chug life blog was in this band and made a post about it back in 2009. This is just pure mid/late 2000s skram. Worth a listen for sure.
Thursday, October 1, 2020
The Jukebox Scenario
Alright, here's my megapost for the year where I hunted down rare stuff off discogs and bankrupted myself for you. I can't really find a comprehensive summary of information for this band, but they were from Magdeburg, Germany and active 1999-2002 it would seem. This is just really high quality late 90s emo of the discohijack stlye. I'm honestly impressed with a lot of this, and I definitely recommend checking it all out; each release is pretty sweet. I will see if I can try to write more about this band and post some scans of the stuff that I bought, but here's the files in the meantime.
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