open letters - perfect pages

open letters were one of the prime bands from the norwichmo days of 2002/2003, along with other greats like long live. open letters played melodic screamo, lots of piercing shrieks and grooving / spazzy melody. two (at least?) vocalists, a lot of falling over. miss those innocent days. thanks dan, gav, james, rob and stewart. 6 songs on here, good memories. they had another cdr i am sure, maybe it's still here.

download here

the lapse - basilico basilica

funky.

emergency! action boys

these guys loved braid. this is a pretty cool song though. 7" was on dead tank. i am not aware of any other releases.

chocolate kiss

now here's an under-rated band. it was 2 or 3 people from car vs driver, and they had quite a few releases, i seem to have 4 different ones. not all of them were great, but they did produce some excellent songs. the les boom boom cdep was probably their best release for me. here's some of their music, it flies about as under the radar as indiemo gets. enjoy.

firebird suite - waiting for you to come back from barcelona

this song came to mind for some reason earlier today, so i figured i should upload it. there is a lot of good stuff on the firebird band 'archives' cd, but this song is a personal favourite. definitely the best song written by any post-braid band as far as i am concerned.



heck, while we're at it, this is pretty killer too. total kolya / van pelt vibes here.

lovemen

while we're doing the japan thing, how about this killer emo-pop song from lovemen. prime bounce. saw these guys play live in the late 90s in winchester and they were incredible. at one point we did a mosh pit can can.

wall - the way to life

wall was a pretty cool band on snuffy smile in the late 90s. they were a fit with bands like lovemen and three minute movie i guess. the lp "a silent voice wanders the sea of contradiction" was a bit braid-y in places, and quite downbeat and meandering in others. it's worth tracking down if you're obscuremo as fuck. here's a song...

the man i fell in love with

how did i ever forget about this band. a 12 inch ep and not much else. shoegazemo perfected. folk from party of helicopters / harriet the spy, totally woozy and beautiful. classic.

silver horseshoes

members of indian summer being sad cowboys. super lo-fi sounds, like if a down on their luck evergreen wandered a lonesome trail at 2 in the morning with a horse with no name.

coasts demo

here's the whole 3 track demo as mp3s, for those who enjoyed the recent post.

download

jacket weather - the last time in august

these guys were doing the rip off mineral / the promise ring / christie front drive thing before joie de vivre and empire! empire! were out of short trousers (2000-20003), although i only stumbled across them myself a couple of years back. this is just twinkly, rocking midwest style cuteness. there's a whole ep of this and some other songs, you can buy it here and listen to what autumn sounds like.

new telepathic friends

new telepathic friends is a band i stumbled across a few years ago. it's pretty gentle indie stuff featuring jeremy from julia. they have a 7 song cdep that's still available, it's a lovely little release. it's pretty low-key and simple, but works well. kind of a bit like ida or pohgoh or something. here's a track.

seki

i was not massively into this band's album as a whole but this song came on whilst i was on the bus this evening. killer slomo for fans of shores / boilermaker. not to be confused with rep seki.

strictly ballroom lp

went on a strictly ballroom 'bender' last night. what a great lp, very pretty music. here's a few choice 'cuts'. i hadn't listened to the lp in a very long time, so it was a pleasure to rediscover it.

coasts / everywhere you look

ok, it's 2012. probably time for an update.

summit hall by everywhere you look. best 1 song emo band of the past 5 years i would say. this is just amazing. repetitious, building, midwestmo, so gorgeous. ending isn't great, but the first few minutes are amazing.

coasts! pre-monument i think? i like this more than monument anyway. this is so beautiful. sad, whiney midwestmo. bands, do this kind of thing.

Bandera

i apologise that i do not ever post. so here is a christmas treat to make it up to you. if you like the last crime and republic of freedom fighters, then go nuts...

the warren commission - what the rain doesn't know

so here's a band who in the whole late 90s scheme of things merited barely a mention. yet i still hear the odd band today that i feel like comparing to them, which is nice. additionally, whilst the warren commission were lost amidst a sea of similar post-hardcore / indiemo bands at the time of their existence, if they came out now, i would be waxing lyrically about them, as it's the kind of shit that makes obscuremo tick. male+female vocals, pretty guitars, a little promise ring bounce and requisite sadness. if you ever wish you could have more bands that sounded like the promise ring, jejune, ribbon fix and pohgoh, and you haven't heard the warren commission, then you should download this right now. this cd came out on a label called unity power. they also had at least one other record, a 7" which is either lost in the depths of my record collection or long since sold to some other kid when in a rash fit of record purging after i got burned out on indiemo for a couple of years.

they have a myspace page.

you can buy this album and the 7" from here.

sad fact: if you google this album name, you get 7 hits.

download this here.

eat people

this was a band i was going to put a record out by, but given that they seem to have split up and the record hasn't been mentioned for several months, you may as well download these 5 songs.

that this record will not exist is a travesty. if you like boys life and braid, you will faint when you hear this.

download.

luck of aleia

whilst bumbling around on last.fm i noticed that these guys had under 500 listeners, which perplexed me. i never really thought of them being that obscure or unknown, for the simple fact that their album came out on caulfield, and therefore everyone remotely interested in that period of emo should have checked it out by now. i guess that's not the case though. ok, so luck of aleia only ever released this 6 song 10" / cd, and it featured caulfield head honcho bernie mcginn, formerly of sideshow - a band i never really 'got'. this six songer from 1999 or so would have been one of the last true midwestmo releases before that period pretty much shrivelled away. the music is bouncy and kind of poppy, with little mathy inflections not far off the braid path. my favourite song on here remains 'happy birthday', which is super catchy and has a great driving chorus. other bands that will come to mind whilst listening to this are the promise ring and superchunk. each song clocks in around the 4 minute mark or so, but they tend not to outstay their welcome.

if you are a fan of the midwestmo sound, then you should give this one a listen. it's a shame that this kind of style was pretty much consigned to the musical dustbin for almost a decade, but you can still hear some of the elements that make it such a fun listen in new bands such as everyone everywhere and pswingset.

you can download this ep right here

crash and britany - kids luv you lp

this blog had lain dormant for a while, but i suspect that the world did not grind to a halt or organised protests insisting upon its return. i have not felt like writing much at all recently, even reviews of new stuff, but on some internet back water someone asked if anyone had the crash & britany lp (kids luv you) available for download and i did, so i figured i'd do the decent thing and stick it up on obscuremo. i am kind of surprised that this lp is not out there and easily findable on some other blog but i didn't search to thoroughly and i felt like writing a piece about this lp as i really enjoy it. it's not an album i dig out too often, but when i do, it's always worth while. i first heard this record at a friends house several years ago. pretty much the second i got home i was on the internet, trying to hunt it down. i succeeded, not sure how much it cost but it was in some second hand store so not much. i think in the same haul i got the goddamn richard & the one eyed liars lp, and a candyland car crash shirt. not bad! that shirt is now riddled with holes and can only be worn in bed.

anyway, this lp is a good un. if you are downloading this, you probably know what you're getting. crash & britany was out from the west coast of the united states and played some airy, shoegazemo. basically it's all swirly guitars, live recordings, ham-fisted production, occasionally off key girl vocals, and great grooves. lazy shits like me would lump them in with ribbon fix and pot valiant, although ribbon fix were perhaps a bit more straight forward. to that extent c&b were pretty unique, which is a huge part of their appeal. it's miserable, drawn out indie rock that sometimes gets loud and galloping. and listening to this right now i realised that football, etc sort of sound a bit like this. grass widow also have one song on their first 12" that is pretty emo and makes me think of some stuff on here. i guarantee you no-one else ever will suggest that though.

c&b had a 7" featuring one song off here and one other. it is good. get it. they are also on the in memory of jason comp, which is kind of a mediocre comp with amazing bands on it. it's worth picking up though if you see it for cheap.

you can find the band on myspace : http://www.myspace.com/crashandbritany


you can watch this video of a song not on the lp here :



(i love the style of this vid, great song too)

singer kelly slusher has made solo music, i heard a cd, it was quite nice - http://www.myspace.com/kellyslusher


oh yeah, you want to download this here : http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/emo/obscuremo/27/crash.zip