Tag: emo

al Riggs Commemorates the Birth and Death of the “Emo Revival” on Latest Single

Like any music scene, the Emo Revival of the early 2010s was littered with problematic men wielding power over others. Durham, North Carolina-based singer-songwriter al Riggs returns to that era, not to wallow upon those treacherous slopes, but rather to share honest stories of pain and heartache born out of it. With the aptly-titled “Emo Revival,” premiering today via Audiofemme, al Riggs emerges as a remarkable storytelling vessel, a somber amber glow of guitar and gentle percussion pulsing around them.

“This is about a lot of stories that are not mine to tell, but mainly it’s about witnessing the birth and death of a musical movement in real time,” Riggs tells Audiofemme. “Entire mini-civilizations pop up from time to time and it’s always fascinating to be on the sidelines and witness it until you realize that these are real people (and all that implies) and not the magical architects some folks would have you believe. What a fuckin’ weird time it was. This is a song about someone hoping a dead movement comes back, for good and ill.”

Riggs beholds the emo flame as it ignites and then sputters out on the final stanza. “You weren’t ready to grow that fast/You had friends, then you didn’t have friends,” they cry. “Just a wall to de-thumbtack and shove into a box/Then move on like your future depends on the revival/Then you moved on like your future depended on the revival.”

“Emo Revival” is Riggs’ “pathetic version” of Joni Mitchell’s 1970 classic “Woodstock,” from her Message to Love album. “It was a very specific moment in time that we’re still reckoning with, but I wanted to write it in a way that was as poetic or faux-poetic as any song written about the hippie movement,” they explain.

Usually one to start with a phrase or a title first, Riggs crafted the song around the very loaded term “emo revival” from observing online discourse around very specific bands like The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die and Brightside. Riggs’ performance also speaks to the experience of many friends and ex-friends who once saw their careers flash like a comet in the night sky. “That era was certainly fun, and we got a lot of great music out of it. But I definitely don’t want to go back there,” they say. “I can attest for people I know personally ─ that whole ‘movement’ was just chock full of creeps and people who just wanted to reign supreme.”

“Emo Revival” appears on Riggs’ forthcoming LP, I Got A Big Electric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep, out April 2 via their own Horse Complex Records. The single is a bit of an outlier to the album’s overarching theme of relationships and queer domesticity. Calling to Father John Misty’s 2015 record, I Love You, Honeybear, in regards to structure, Riggs traces “the path of where I started to where I am now, in terms of my relationship with my now-husband” across 10 other songs ─ Riggs also notes lead single “America’s Pencil” as the other track which lies far outside the general theme.

The record begins with “The Most,” a deceptively anxiety-ridden intro into a an album that ultimately blooms into much brighter, warm colors. “It is a weird way to start an album that’s ultimately about a happy subject, but I think it works as a reminder that the story of the album is an excursion,” Riggs notes. “It’s not an easy path and doesn’t have a 100 percent happy ending. There are good days and there are bad days.”

Later, a cover of “Ragged but Right” finds Riggs linking up with two “bookends on the same spectrum of queer country, the past and the present,” in genre stalwart Patrick Haggerty, frontman of Lavender Country, and Paisley Fields, who has recently broken out with their 2020 record, Electric Park Ballroom.

“I had this song in my head for years,” says Riggs, noting the George Jones version they gravitated toward most growing up. “It’s one of those rare country songs that actually has a happy ending and a contentment to it. It’s someone who has lived a long, troubled life, and finally has settled down with a family and realizes there’s nothing wrong with that at all.”

In their own right, al Riggs is prolific in the Americana scene. They’re most known for a high level of output, often releasing two or more records in a single year. Since their debut in 2016, Riggs has recorded and released nine studio albums, including 2020’s Bile and Bone with producer Lauren Francis. Despite such a consistent stream of music, I Got A Big Electric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep feels wholly special in the bunch.

“I have figured out how to write about myself in a way that doesn’t seem glorifying or self-pitying. I’ve learned how to better indulge more universal themes and let the songs grow,” they say. “I’ve also learned to let things change and get better. I think the same can be said about my relationship and marriage. We’ve been together for four years. That’s the longest relationship I’ve been in, and I think one of the reasons why is patience. There’s always room for improvement and compromise. It’s easy to spot what is and isn’t worth fighting for.”

“I’m very lucky to have a partner who is tremendously empathetic and works with me in a way that doesn’t feel condescending. He meets me where I am, and that’s rare,” they continue.

Their husband is arts journalist Dustin K. Britt, who actually wrote the press release around the record, and for a very specific reason. While the record certainly explores their relationship, Riggs did not “want to think of him as my muse. It is absolutely not that kind of relationship at all. I hate that trope ─ that this person is my muse and nothing else. It’s a dangerous way to be in a relationship and to make an album.”

Riggs adds, “He points out in the press releases that he only really shows up once or twice over the whole album. It’s not specifically about him, or even me, although it is sometimes. It’s more about the growth between myself and him and the actual bonding and congregation of feelings.”

Follow al Riggs on Twitter and Instagram for ongoing updates.

Blake English Connects Gender and Body Horror In “Sad Girls Dance Party” Video

Blake English channels monsters of his past directly into his visuals. It also helps that he has a deep love for horror films. As far as the new clip for “Sad Girls Dance Party” goes, he incorporates his tenuous, very complicated relationship with his father as the emotional base while exploring his personal transformation through gnarly body-horror and other frightening imagery. “I’m just a freak in this fucked up scene,” he wails.

Sticky musical webs spew from his fingertips, but it is his brutal honesty that’s most magnetic. “You know, my dad was basically a kid when he had me at 24. He also experienced a lot of trauma in his childhood that he hadn’t dealt with, which no doubt is why it was projected on me,” English shares with Audiofemme. “Mental health wasn’t exactly a part of the conversation in his household growing up, so he was left to figure it out on his own. But after having me, as him and I struggled to find common ground, he began to grow just as I was growing.”

“Sad Girls” opens on English, soaking in a clawfoot bathtub filled with ice cubes. A single overhead bulb emits a cool blue light that falls down around him to give the scene a certain ominous feel. Things immediately escalate as a four-legged creature crawls out of his stomach and through his mouth, its tentacles writhing in a sticky purple goo and nearly suffocating him to death. The singer collapses from the trauma. It’s an important moment that sets in motion the visual’s powerful narrative, chronologically moving from an innocent young boy trying on lipstick to an independent and fierce 20-something badass.

“The video really plays with the idea of finding beauty in the horror ─ finding comfort in something that otherwise would be unsettling,” he explain, noting that the scene was inspired by his all-time favorite movie, Aliens. “I wanted this video to play as an homage to all my favorite horror films with me getting to play in the middle of them,” he explains.

 

Always hypnotized by horror storytelling and filmmaking, creature-features were his gateway drug at a very young age. “My parents used to take me to Kmart every Friday night and pick out a creature-like action figure that I’d then play with amongst my sister’s barbies,” he remembers, citing such essentials as Gremlins and Critters. English draws upon a vast collection of favorite horror films, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dracula, The Thing, and The Strangers, as well as recent TV shows like Stranger Things and American Horror Story. “I wanted to leave it open for horror lovers to see if they can find all the references within this music video,” he adds.

The horror genre has a particular raw honesty to its stories: exposing the darkest fears of mankind through an extreme, heightened, and violent reality. “I think horror storytelling is extremely interesting because it’s relatively the same with every story with little variances here and there, and it remains intriguing,” he says. “It’s a formula that works over and over and over again. It continues to scare. It continues to excite. I’m a huge lover of haunted mazes that pop up around Halloween time, and the jump scares get me every time. I can be scared the same way over and over again and never be desensitized to it, which makes it all the more thrilling for me.”

It stands to reason, then, he’d have his own concepts tucked up his sleeve. “I actually am in the middle of writing a few horror movie scripts that hopefully you’ll see as features in the future if we can ever escape this pandemic mess,” he teases. “One deals with a cult; one deals with a haunted toy; and one deals in the science fiction dystopian world.”

“Sad Girls Dance Party” is the tip of the iceberg of English’s truly outstanding debut EP, Spiders Make Great Poets. You can always trust he’ll ground his songs in deep, meaningful lyrics ripped right out of his life. The most impressive is “The Neighbors,” a five-minute and 30-second epic in the vein of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade. “What will the neighbors say/When they hear the son is gay/Daughter’s a meth addict/Mom’s drunk and sick of it,” he chants. “Daddy got paid today/But beat mommy anyway…”

Much like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the song sheds layers, redresses, and shifts with alarming ease. A co-write with Gabe Lopez, English actually had the entire song written and “swimming around in my head before taking it to him to bring it to life,” he recalls. “It helps that Gabe is one of my best friends, so he knows very well what my influences are and how to integrate them throughout the production. He’s also a genius musician which was required for this song, in particular, with all the tempo and key changes.”

With the longest runtime of any song on the EP, its length was an intentional choice to not only totally immerse the listener but give him a grand theatrical moment onstage (in a pre-pandemic world). “It’s something that takes you through a true beginning, middle, and end,” he says, noting the lead vocal was done in one take.

“We tried recording it the typical way where the lead is recorded in sections, and then the best parts are spliced together to get that ‘perfect’ vocal,” he continues, “but it just wasn’t sounding the way it needed to. By suggestion of Gabe, we decided to record three full takes and chose the best of them.”

Later, with “A Ghost I Knew from Yesterday,” English vents his frustrations over those in his life who voted for Trump. “And what’s worst of all if I give you up/Is knowing you will never change,” he sings. His heart is heavy, mimicked with the slow, methodical guitar work, and the lyrics are as knotted as the issue itself. “I see who you were fade away/A ghost I knew from yesterday,” he weeps.

“I go back and forth on this as new situations arise that frustrate me with his presidency. I don’t, however, think it’s as black and white as it’s made out to be in the current social climate. I view him less as a villain and more as an incompetent fool that has conned a certain portion of Americans,” explains English. “Unfortunately, some of those people are my relatives, and when you talk to them, they truly believe that they voted for him with the best intentions. So, it’s a difficult spot that is a test of patience for everyone right now. I think that as painful as it can be, having conversations with those you differ from is the only way to create a change of heart within them.” Equipping oneself with the facts and “a pretty keen sense of self control,” he says, is as vital to the conversation. “Susan Rice said it best. To paraphrase: ‘It’s harder to hate someone when you know them personally.’ And I think that by distancing yourself from those that have been, for lack of a better term, misinformed, we are only further dividing ourselves and thus not creating any change.”

Change not only happens when we have those tough conversations but reflect inward and really listen. “These past four years have been a huge reflection for everyone, I think. Trump has been a big ugly mirror to the United States, as a whole, which prevents us from living in self-centered complacency,” he says. “If you’re not reflecting on issues of systemic racism, sex, gender, domestic and international politics, workplace ethics, misogyny, distribution of wealth, economics, equality as a whole – and the list goes on and on – your head is truly in the sand and unfortunately you will be left behind in a world that was, while the rest of us progress towards a better future.”

English’s “United States of Depression” bookends the project with his grittiest, most explosive moment. “I take the little blue pills/Just to cope with all the damage/And still I see no end in sight/Yet they say I can manage/Just up the dose/Let’s have a toast,” he sings. The song confronts his struggle with mental health and wide-sweeping changes he’s already seen. “I am so grateful to everyone who has shifted the world’s view of mental health as a valid concern in moving forward as a human race,” he says. “I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life. My battle with it has involved therapy, medication, mediation, spirituality and all things in between. It’s not a very exact science as everyone is different and needs different things to improve.”

His mental war came to a head when he once left a movie theatre and had to go straight to a hospital. “I thought I was dying, and really, I was having a panic attack and just didn’t know what to call it,” he remembers. “I will say, I’m better than I’ve ever been at this moment, but it is a constant struggle.”

The importance of writing and recording Spiders Make Great Poets can never be understated. It’s done more than just satiate his creative thirst; it has soothed his anxiety-addled mind from further damage. Horror movies, an unconditionally loving support system, reading, and the ocean have all also assisted in keeping him grounded, healthy, and sane.

“Something I discovered through [this EP] process is that if I put it in a song, it allows the emotional charge to live there and free up space within me for newer and more nuanced perspectives not so affected by my past,” he concludes. “So, with all these songs, the pain gets to live in them separate from me where now I can be an objective viewer instead of being the one experiencing it.”

Follow Blake English on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for ongoing updates.

ONLY NOISE: How I Turned COVID Blues Into The First Virtual Emo Nite Hosted By Non-Male DJs

The author in her childhood bedroom.

Celebrating the arrival of 2020 immediately took me to 2010. I rang in the new year at Barclays Center with a friend, seeing The Strokes for the first time. It felt appropriate, given how at the end of 2019, I had mentally regressed to feeling like my teenage self.

The year ended on a rough note. I lost my job and months later, a friend died at a very young age. After spending the year working on bettering myself by going to therapy, exercising, drinking less, and leaving toxic relationships behind, suddenly all progress was lost. I was emotionally fragile and reckless, incapable of having a positive mindset. As someone whose work is tied to her identity, I didn’t know who I was without it.

I sought validation and anything that’d distract me from my depression. In a misguided attempt to find happiness, I entered a brief, unhealthy romance with someone. What was meant to be a distraction brought more emotional distress. In a way, it made me feel like I was sixteen again. At that age, I had turned to music to cope, listening to songs that made me feel less alone while dealing with heartache. This time, I decided to do the same. I revisited old favorites that accurately described what I was dealing with, such as “Glendora” by Rilo Kiley and “Title Track” by Death Cab for Cutie. I reminded myself that there was a reason why Jenny Lewis wrote about these issues: it’s common to seek validation from the wrong people, and it doesn’t make me any less of a person to have a moment of weakness.

Music helped, and later things started to fall into place. I was hired at my dream job. I eased up on drinking to cope with grief and depression. I was exercising regularly again, focusing on using it as a designated time to clear my thoughts. My friends were supportive as I attempted to rebuild my life. But just when I was finally feeling like my old self, the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City.

I began quarantining in early March out of precaution, before the city declared a state of emergency. My parents were very concerned, and though the pandemic was still in its early stages, my family urged me to return home with them to Puerto Rico. I initially said no, but after much convincing from my mom, I decided to temporarily move back home with my parents.

Typically, I’d avoid spending more than a week back home. It triggers painful memories from a decade ago, when I desperately wanted to leave the island. I didn’t have true friends growing up and spent much of my time isolated in my room, making internet friends and learning about bands through Tumblr and last.fm.

As a teen, I had no idea that finding solace in music through online communities would shape my future. My childhood bedroom walls are adorned with posters featuring some of the bands I’ve interviewed: Vivian Girls, Of Montreal, Best Coast, and Los Campesinos. I wish I could tell my teenage self, who felt so lost and insecure, that I’d accomplish so many things beyond my wildest dreams at that age. But being back home also felt like I was returning to feeling disconnected from the music-based community I had formed in Brooklyn.

In quarantine, I stopped hearing regularly from friends – it was reminiscent of that loneliness I felt as a teen. My depression returned and made me incapable of leaving the house; I didn’t have the energy to even take a quick walk around the block. No matter how much I accomplished at work, my depression caused me to be very hard on myself, making me think I was going to permanently lose the life I had in Brooklyn. This feeling persisted for two months, becoming worse each day.

One day, music writer Arielle Gordon tweeted about hosting a virtual emo night and after attending with my sibling, I realized I could create an online community of my own that would make me feel less alone. I told my sibling that I wanted to make my own virtual emo night, but with non-male DJs, widening the space for fellow music journalists, tour managers, artists, and anyone involved in music who, like me, were craving that sense of community they’d lost.

After tweeting about wanting to do it, I quickly received a response from Lindsey Miller and Mel Grinberg – both of whom are managers whose work I deeply admire – saying they wanted to get involved. Within two minutes, we had a concrete plan, and we invited Arielle and Rolling Stone editor Suzy Exposito to join. I named it Home, Like NoPlace Is There after The Hotelier’s album – appropriately about confronting depression and dark memories.

Before planning it, my depression was making me feel like my life had no purpose. Planning this event made me realize that others were in need of a community as much as I was, and it was exactly the positive, healthy distraction I needed. People I hadn’t met before began promoting it and were excited for it.

It was nerve-wracking, though. It was the first time I had planned a virtual event. Would it even work? What if something went wrong and the event failed? When it was time for the event to start, there were already 20-something people waiting on Zoom. The number of people kept increasing throughout the night, and the awkwardness of having a virtual emo night dissipated. The Hotelier’s Christian Holden even joined! People made new friends and found a safe space where they could talk about music and joke with each other.

Many reached out later saying it was the most fun they’d had since the pandemic began. That was true for me, too. For the five-and-a-half hours of the emo night, I felt happy and appreciated; I was overjoyed that my fellow DJs felt seen and appreciated, too. The last thing I thought I’d do in 2020 was revisit emo, a genre I have a complicated relationship with due to feeling like my writing about emo wasn’t respected as much as male colleagues’ – not to mention how the genre is often tied to bands that represent toxic masculinity. But now, emo carries a more positive meaning for me. It ties different generations together, and on Friday nights, everyone gets to feel like they belong somewhere – no matter who they are.

With this emo night, I have something to look forward to weekly that gives me an excuse to (virtually) socialize and dress up. While it’ll be some time until things are back to “normal” – if that ever even happens – I’m excited to feel like my regular self.

Follow Home, Like NoPlace Is There on Twitter for ongoing virtual emo night events.

Can You Still Feel the Pull?: A Decade of Now, Now

Cacie Dalager and Bradley Hale of Now Now, circa 2017. Photo by Sam San Román.

Now, Now pulled many of us into the 2010s—right out of the Hot Topic era and into the brave new world of adulthood. Formed in Minnesota during the early aughts by frontwoman Cacie Dalager and drummer Bradley Hale, when the two were still in high school, the duo spent their first seven years honing their sound, refining their line-up, and coming of age before releasing their Neighbors EP in 2010. Throughout their music, a melancholy keyboard anchors guitar and drums that pay homage to emo forbears like Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football, and Paramore. Now, Now was a bit of a forgotten stepchild of the “scene” era, but for those who bought in, they were both vessel and balm for emo angst.

Dalager’s moody charisma lies in her velvety voice, paired with the drama of Tegan-and-Sara-esque syllable breaks. The band’s Neighbors EP burst like a firework into the new decade, just a year after their meandering debut album, Cars. After the instrumental intro track, the aptly-named “Rebuild,” electric guitars and drums weave a shimmering web that eventually nets the song’s soaring coda. Darkly-plucked guitars and plaintive vocals buoy the rest of the album through “Roommates,” “Jesus Camp,” and the title track, and through two emotionally-charged acoustic versions. All of it is about young crushes, restlessness, hometown ennui. “Tell them when they’re older / how you miss the neighbors / standing in the front yard / telling all your secrets / like they were theirs to tell.” Each song finds the listener staring Dalager in her huge, haunted, green eyes, spellbound by her lightly veiled tales of loneliness and longing.

Two years later, their cult-favorite album Threads dropped, a melee of fuzzy guitars, wide-eyed melodies, dark chords, and sharp drums that earned them a modest but diehard fanbase. This is the one most emo kids will cite: the moody guitars layer over and over and over, the ideal soundtrack for throwing a hood over your earbuds on a bus to anywhere. It begins with haunting opener “The Pull,” and ends with lyrics on “Magnet” that implore, “Can you still feel the pull?”

Now Now circa 2012, with former guitarist Jess Abbott.

The album peaks on track four in the stripped-down strums of “Dead Oaks” — perhaps the band’s most beloved song. Though it’s less than two minutes long, “Dead Oaks” offers the effortless and infectious “Oh oh oh oh oh I’ve been up and oh oh I don’t sleep enough” that present-day fans will still echo at the top of their lungs.

From 2012 to 2017, Now, Now went pretty much silent. That summer, they rewarded their faithful fanbase with new single “SGL,” an electric ode to front-seat love that was satisfying, hot, and catchy as hell. Next came shimmering “Yours”: pop mastery that echoed the ‘80s and seemed radio-ready. “AZ” and “MJ” followed, showing off more emotive synths and charming, breathy Dalager vocals. A little under a year later, Now, Now released Saved, their final full-length album of the decade. Saved is fuller and punchier than their first two LPs, but the sharp vocals, piercing melodies, and compelling drums boomerang to 2012. 2010, even – “Back to the heart of it all.”

The last decade saw pop intensify and rock retreat, and Now, Now followed suit; yet, they remain emo kids at heart, along with many of us who still feel the pull. As the opening line of “Threads” incants: “Find a thread to pull / and we can watch it unravel;” their lyrics are hollowed out with longing, from 2010 to 2019 and back. Throughout the 2010s, Now, Now has remained a trap door out of adult life—a promise that you can always retreat into your hoodie’s sleeves if all else fails.

ALBUM REVIEW: Microwave Solidifies Lyrical Superiority on Death is a Warm Blanket

It’s inevitable that your favorite bands will eventually release an album that challenges you in some way. Georgia band Microwave’s newest release, Death is a Warm Blanket, is certainly one of those albums for me.

Their 2016 LP, Much Love, a heartrending thirty minutes of beautifully written and arranged tracks lamenting the complexities of love, metal health, and crises of faith, made quick work of cementing its place on my all time favorites list. This is partially due to the machinations of main vocalist Nathan Hardy, whose incredible voice finds the perfect balance between raw and tender with deceptive ease. One of Much Love’s trademarks is songs that switch gears halfway through, with ambling, lullaby-like melodies that devolve into vocal stylings one would expect to hear on a full-blown emo album.

On Death is a Warm Blanket, Hardy and his bandmates Tyler Hill (bass), Timothy Pittard (drums), and Wesley Swanson (guitar) have certainly not abandoned their love for frequent tonal shifts, but instead have decided to lean more heavily into their propensity for discordant sounds, throat-shredding vocals, and couch-tipping despair.

Write off all of your old friends, advises Hardy on album standout “Hate TKO.” Tolerance is a well-swept path to hell. Something I’ve always loved about Microwave is that not only can they deliver a gut-twister of a line about romantic relationships (see: Cause I’m not yours/no, that’s not right/I’m just a novelty you’re toying with to complicate your life from Much Love’s “Whimper”) they can deliver equally heartrending lines about the complexities of friendship, or, worse, your relationship with yourself.

Considering that my relationship with Microwave so far has been one of tunnel-minded infatuation with Much Love, Death is a Warm Blanket required some adjustment on my part. The band’s writing prowess is still undeniable, but upon the first few  listens of Death it was hard for me, as someone who does not gravitate towards emo/post-emo and hardcore music, to connect as immediately with the new songs.

Despite this, a few weeks out from release, I have had a love affair with almost every song on Death is a Warm Blanket, always a good sign for an album’s potential staying power. Of course there are those albums you experience like a burr in a blanket, the ones that enjoy repeat plays for weeks, months, even years, but it take a special succession of episodic experiences for an album to stick with you for the long haul, a knot tied tight in the tapestry of your musical life.

Unlike Much Love, Death is a Warm Blanket is not a easy listen. Microwave still pays close attention to the transitions between songs — the one between “Pull” and “Love’s Will Tear Us Apart” is so imperceptible as to almost seem like an accident — but there is no one and nothing to blame for the lack of ease other than the plain fact that this album choking with disappointment. I think it’s too easy to say that an album with one hand gripped firmly around the emo moon landing flag is “angry.” Anger, to me, implies a baselessness, a throw-it-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks attitude, like the punks of yore punching down with reckless abandon, using the guise of rebellion to hide the fact that they’ve got their heads as far up their ass as the rest of us.

There is nothing baseless about the disappointment and exhaustion that coat this album. There is certainly a level of theatricality — the Frankensteinian townspeople metaphor in “Hate TKO” comes to mind, as well as the fact that they opened the album with a song called “Leather Daddy” — but the title song really distills the album down to its discomforting essence with a single line. I really needed a blanket/I didn’t know how to ask, Hardy sings on “DIAWB,” his voice distorted to near-intelligibility. It’s lines like this that keeps me coming back, even if I have to plunge a pickax through the arrangements to find them. Somehow, this line manages to feel both far-flung and claustrophobic, this small horror of navigating adult life: I didn’t know how to ask.

It’s not all wolflike screams and shaking fists at the sky, however. At turns beautiful, at turns grating, “Pull” begins with a haunting, lantern-light melody that sounds like Hardy is chastising someone for not letting him go while standing in their doorway. I secretly would kill for a fully acoustic version of this song (I literally had a dream about it) but have come to accept the plunge into crunchy guitars and screams that happens seconds after Hardy half-whispers I can’t do this again.

“Hate TKO” (See R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass’s 1980 hit “Love T.K.O.” for likely title inspiration, T.K.O. meaning “Technical Knock Out”) also slides into a moment of strange softness — or, at least, a softness reminiscent of submersing yourself in white noise a la Eleven from Stranger Things — as a childlike, accented voice reminds us that we have an endless supply of love within us for anything we choose.

Album closer “Part of It” is a bit of a sleeper hit, tonally similar to their earliest work in the sense that Hardy has found himself perched between the false promise of religion and the dark pit of believing in nothing, still certain the latter is the lesser of two evils, but still pretty unhappy about it. In a perfect world I don’t think I would sing/my voice would shrink in peaceful atrophy, he muses, a killer line that genuinely pissed me off the first time I heard it, because I’m almost sure I’ll never write anything that good.

While only time can determine if Death is a Warm Blanket will stitch itself into my musical tapestry the way Much Love so confidently did, I know that I’m in it for the long haul with this band. If I wasn’t willing to challenge my musical taste at all, I probably would never have taken the steps that led me to discover Microwave in the first place. And that would be ever so much further away from that perfect world.

Microwave is on tour now. Follow them on Facebook for ongoing updates.

PLAYING COLUMBUS: Holiday Round-Up

Whether you think Columbus is as cold as I do (@ me, midwesterners) or not, shorter days and darker skies can drag at anyone’s energy. And for those estranged from family or friends, this time of year is especially hard.

If the holiday festivities are draining you, fear not! Check out our Playing Columbus-approved activity guide to have *actual* fun and beat the Christmas blues. In true testament to Columbus’ burgeoning music and art scene, we’ve chosen something to do for each day this week. Grab a cocoa, strap into a sled, and find something new.

Thursday, 12/21

The Columbus Queer Open Mic featuring Tatum Michelle Maura of TTUM

Wild Goose Creative’s last open mic of 2017 will feature TTUM, the musical project of Tatum Margot, a Columbus-based multi-instrumentalist, singer, song-writer, and producer. Margot’s first electronic album, Flawless Ruby, came out in October of 2017. Along with TTUM’s performance, the community is invited to bring art, music, poetry, comedy, and story-telling to share. Sign up for a 5 minute slot at the door to bring your act onstage.

8PM, 2491 Summit St., Columbus OH

Suggested donation $5

Friday, 12/22

Jingle Jam Skate

This event is clearly marketed towards children, but I love ice skating, and I love glow sticks. Plus – it’s early! Skate to some holiday tunes in the early evening, with plenty of time to catch a later event.

7pm, Skate Zone 71

$8 (this includes skate rental *and* a glowstick!)

Saturday, 12/23

Nina West Christmas Pageant

This Saturday, local drag superstar Nina West will present her “sassiest, singiest series ever” at the Gateway. The event begins with a mixer, and is followed by a sing-along program featuring West’s comedy and performances by the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus.

4:30pm mixer, 6pm show, Gateway Film Center

$20, including a $5 donation to Kaleidoscope Youth Center

Sunday, 12/24

Christmas Eve Karaoke

Honestly…who could miss this? Excess Karaoke is hosting their weekly Sunday karaoke at Ace of Cups (that means you get to perform on a real stage!) immediately after the 9th annual “gathering of people not celebrating xmas.” Ugly sweaters are optional.

10pm – 2am, Ace of Cups

FREE 21+

Monday, 12/25

Pink Floyd The Wall (1982) in 35mm

Well, my Gateway-employee roommate isn’t happy the film center is open on Christmas, but you might be! Check out their showing of Roger Waters’ 1982 film The Wall, showing in its original 35mm.

9:30pm, Gateway Film Center

$12

Tuesday, 12/26

Jazz Jam

If you’re wiped out from the holiday festivities, recharge at Park Street Tavern’s Tuesday Jazz Jam, which features both their own house band and rotating local musicians.

8:30pm Park Street Tavern

FREE, 21+

Wednesday, 12/27

Sad Boyz “Sad Years Eve”

Dance to pop punk, emo, hardcore and alternative all night long at Skully’s to ring in the new year. If you’d like to get the night started early, head to Bodega from 6pm-9pm; $1 of every PBR purchased will be donated to mental health advocacy and suicide prevention organizations.

Skully’s Music Diner

FREE before 10pm, $5 after 10pm, 21+

Thursday, 12/28

Co-release show with Maza Blaska and Sweet Teeth

 

Local bands Maza Blaska and Sweet Teeth are both celebrating new releases on Thursday night at Ace of Cups. They’ll be joined by another Columbus favorite, Corbezzolo.

8pm, Ace of Cups

$5, 18+

ALBUM REVIEW: Sorority Noise “You’re Not As _____ As You Think”

Hartford emo band Sorority Noise released their third full length record, You’re Not As _____ As You Think, this week. It’s so self-aware it’s like the Scream of emo records. It’s formulaic as far as pop punk records go, but the band almost points it out ironically, trying to hedge out a comfortable space in the period between pimply adolescence and grown adulthood. They intersperse these moments of realization in the lyrics, layered over pretty standard (albeit well-done) pop punk, so that it captures these growing pains.

A lot of lyrical elements from Sorority Noise’s previous records carry over onto this one – drug abuse, the pain of loss, depression and mental illness – but with a new perspective. You oftentimes catch the word “still” – on the opening track (and no doubt the best on the record) “No Halo,” vocalist Cameron Boucher sings “the same things that plague you still plaguing me.” The following track, “A Portrait Of,” Boucher continues, “I still have demons, they won’t be leaving anytime soon.” It’s like a friend talking to you about an ex-girlfriend to the point of self-realization where it’s like, I really need to get over this.

They are maturing in that they’re noticing the patterns in their destructive behaviors, and know they need to change them, even if they haven’t gotten there yet. In “A Better Sun” Boucher sings “I did cocaine to impress my mouth-breathing friends” with an air of self-disgust so blatant it’s clear they’ve grown from their mistakes.

This record is basically a peek into the inner-psyche of your standard “brooding male” boyfriend character. He’s emotional and “complicated.” He’s experienced loss and gained depth. But you’ve been there enough times to know the last thing you need is another self-deprecating sad boy who sporadically stops answering texts for weeks at a time. Logic screams no but you go for it anyway because it’s really charming in a demented way, the predictability of it all. This record is like that – you’ve been there before, you know what’s going to happen next, but you listen to it over and over because pop punk is meant to be impossibly catchy.

All in all, Sorority Noise is more self-aware than you think. While they don’t rewrite the rules on this record, they know their tropes and they play them well.

Stream You’re Not As _____ As You Think via bandcamp below.

LIVE REVIEW: Taking Back Sunday at Irving Plaza

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In high school, I heard from all my friends that Taking Back Sunday was the best show they had ever seen. They raved and bragged, and yet, I never saw them live myself. It was one of my biggest regrets—until now. On September 30, I finally saw Taking Back Sunday perform at Irving Plaza.

Now, my expectations were exceedingly high, so perhaps they were destined to fall short. But as thrilled as I was to relive my emo days, the first half of the show left me a bit bored and uninterested. Once they played the songs from Tell all Your Friends and Louder Now, I got my second wind and felt revitalized by the show. However, the first half had me feeling somewhat sleepy and disconnected.

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TBS released their newest album, Tidal Wave, this year. And while I didn’t completely study up and try to memorize every song, that’s mostly because I was pretty turned off by it upon first listen. To me, it sounded like a forced attempt at punk, and the tracks I heard fell flat. But I missed the screaming, and I missed the broken hearts worn on sleeves. Mostly I missed the Taking Back Sunday of the early 2000s.

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When they sang their older tracks, you could hardly hear frontman Adam Lazzara sing as he was drowned out by the enthusiastic crowd. “MakeDamnSure.” “Cute Without the ‘E.'” “There’s No ‘I’ in Team.” “You’re So Last Summer.” The old classics struck as if it were 2004 and we were all brushing up on Fuse before heading to the show. And, of course, the mic swings were there.

Overall, unfortunately, it wasn’t the best show I’d ever seen in 2016, but I’m confident that if I had seen in back in their heyday, it probably would’ve gone down in my concert-going history as an all-time best.

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Remind yourself of “You’re So Last Summer” below.