Emo is a music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
Screamo is an subgenre of emo that emerged in the early 1990s and emphasizes "willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics". San Diego–based bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow pioneered the genre in the early 1990s, and it was developed in the late 1990s mainly by bands from the East Coast of the United States such as Pg. 99, Orchid, Saetia, and I Hate Myself. Screamo is strongly influenced by hardcore punk and characterized by the use of screamed vocals. Lyrical themes usually include emotional pain, death, romance, and human rights. The term "screamo" has frequently been mistaken as referring to any music with screaming.
My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way. They are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the latter label.
I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love is the debut studio album by American rock band My Chemical Romance, released on July 23, 2002 by Eyeball Records. Produced by Thursday vocalist Geoff Rickly, it was recorded at Nada Recording Studio in New Windsor, New York, in May 2002. In the band's 2006 documentary Life on the Murder Scene, the band describes the painful conditions lead singer Gerard Way was in during the recording of the album due to a toothache, causing the album’s recording to take longer than planned.
Converge is an American metalcore band formed by vocalist and artist Jacob Bannon and guitarist and producer Kurt Ballou in Salem, Massachusetts in 1990. While recording their landmark fourth album Jane Doe in 2001, the group became a four-piece with the departure of guitarist Aaron Dalbec and the addition of bassist Nate Newton and drummer Ben Koller. This lineup has remained intact since. The members have also been involved in various side-projects and collaborations, including the bands Supermachiner (Bannon), Old Man Gloom (Newton), and Mutoid Man (Koller). With their extremely aggressive and boundary-pushing sound, rooted in hardcore and heavy metal, they are pioneers of metalcore and its subgenre mathcore.
American Nightmare is an American hardcore punk band from Boston, Massachusetts. They have released three albums, one EP and a compilation of earlier released material under the name American Nightmare.
Deathwish Inc. is an American independent record label conceived by Jacob Bannon of Converge and Tre McCarthy in 2000. Their first release was Deeper the Wound, a split album between Converge and Japanese band Hellchild on April 23, 2001. Deathwish established itself quickly, working with a diverse group of bands and eventually becoming one of the most respected and innovative labels in contemporary hardcore punk and aggressive music in general.
Cursed was a Canadian hardcore punk band formed in 2001 and dissolved in 2008. It featured members from Montreal, Toronto, and Hamilton of various other Canadian DIY bands such as Haymaker, Left for Dead, The Swarm aka Knee Deep in the Dead, Acrid, Ruination, The Black Hand, Countdown to Oblivion, At the Mercy of Inspiration, Shallow North Dakota, Crux of Aux, Quest for Fire and Burning Love.
Deep Elm Records is an independent record label releasing albums by bands such as Lights & Motion, The Appleseed Cast, Brandtson, The White Octave, and Planes Mistaken for Stars. It also released the compilation series The Emo Diaries.
Gouge Away is an American hardcore punk band based in Florida that formed in 2012. The band is influenced by post-hardcore and noise rock bands such as Pixies, the Jesus Lizard, Fugazi, Unwound, the Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower and Nirvana. Gouge Away released its debut album , Dies in 2016 to underground acclaim, and released its second album Burnt Sugar through Deathwish Inc. in 2018.
Ringworm is an American metalcore band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1989. Their name was derived from a Vincent Price movie. The band has toured extensively in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe and has released four albums via Victory Records. In 2013, the band announced they had signed with Relapse Records, releasing three further albums with the label before moving to Nuclear Blast in 2023. Vocalist Human Furnace currently plays in the Cleveland metal band Gluttons and solo project Holyghost.
Trap Them was an American hardcore punk band formed in Salem, New Hampshire in 2001. They released five studio albums and five EPs, including a split EP with Extreme Noise Terror.
Rich Balling is an American musician, producer, and curator. He is best known for being a former member of Rx Bandits. He is also known for his work in Pyramids, The Sound of Animals Fighting, and being the editor of two books Revolution on Canvas and its sequel Revolution on Canvas 2.
The Emo Diaries is a series of twelve compilation albums released by Deep Elm Records between 1997 and 2011. The series had an open submissions policy and featured mostly acts that were unsigned at the time of the albums' releases. Deep Elm founder John Szuch claims that the original name for the series was intended to be The Indie Rock Diaries, but this was ruled out by the fact that the first volume included Jimmy Eat World and Samiam, who were both signed to major record labels. The Emo Diaries was chosen because The Emotional Diaries was too long to fit on the album cover. Despite the title, the bands featured in the series have a diversity of sounds that do not all necessarily fit into the emo style of rock music. Andy Greenwald, in his book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, claims that the series "stake[s] a claim for emo as more a shared aesthetic than a genre":
[T]he bands included hail from all over the world, and the musical styles range from racing punk to droopy, noodley electro. Still, the prevalence of the series—coupled with its maudlin subtitles and manic-depressive tattoo cover art—did much to codify the word "emo" and spread it to all corners of the underground.
Fuck with Fire is a studio album by the band Planes Mistaken for Stars, released in 2001.
Victims were a Swedish hardcore punk band, originally hailing from Nyköping, at the end of their career they were based in Stockholm. The final line-up consisted of lead vocalist and bass player Johan Eriksson, drummer Andy Henriksson, guitar player, vocalist Jon Lindqvist and guitar player Gareth Smith.
Harm's Way is an American hardcore punk band from Chicago, Illinois, formed in 2006. The band started as a side project, but ended up becoming a more serious and full-time band in their later years. Harm's Way has since released four studio albums: Reality Approaches (2009), Isolation (2011) and Rust (2015) and several EPs. On February 9, 2018, the band released their critically acclaimed Metal Blade Records debut, titled Posthuman. They have been recognized for their unique blend of metal, industrial, and hardcore music.
Mercy is the third studio album by American rock band Planes Mistaken for Stars released in 2006, and was the final album of new material before the band's 2008 disbandment. After several releases on No Idea Records, the band signed to Abacus Recordings — a short-lived heavy metal imprint of Century Media Records that also featured Ion Dissonance and Sick of It All. Guitarist Gared O’Donnell commented on the transition between labels, stating: "Right after Up in Them Guts [2004] came out, other labels expressed interest. We made the decision to do something different, and No Idea backed us up. They said, 'Listen, you've hit the ceiling with what we can do for you. If you want to go to another label for the next record, you have our blessing.'" Mercy was produced by the Seattle-based producer Matt Bayles and was officially released through Abacus on October 3, 2006.
Oathbreaker is a Belgian band from Flanders, formed in 2008 and currently signed to Deathwish Inc. The band consists of guitarists Lennart Bossu and Gilles Demolder, drummer Wim Coppers, and vocalist Caro Tanghe who performs both screamed and sung vocals. They are a part of Church of Ra, an artistic collective started by Amenra, a band of which Lennart and Caro are also members. Like Amenra, Oathbreaker emerged from the Belgian underground hardcore punk scene but integrated extreme metal and art music aesthetics.
Prey is the fourth studio album by American rock band Planes Mistaken for Stars. Following the band's 2008 breakup and their 2010 sporadic return to touring, Prey marks the band's first release since the compilation album We Ride to Fight! (2007) and first release of new material since Mercy (2006). The album was released on October 21, 2016 through Deathwish Inc. who also reissued and remastered Mercy the previous year. The album debuted at number 12 at Billboard Heatseeksers.
