Brian Shultz

Pianos Become The Teeth Keep You It's well-documented how Pianos Become The Teeth frontman Kyle Durfey has grappled with the loss of his father over the course of several albums. Even if the band weren't releasing records in the internet age where this information is freely disseminated among fans, it wouldn't take a crack reporter to figure out: A pre-recorded speech in "Cripples Can't Shive

Iceage Plowing Into The Field Of Love Copenhagen's Iceage gained a certain reputation and divided reaction with the reckless, snotty abandon they approached their first two albums with, 2011's New Brigade and last year's You're Nothing. In truth, thou ...

The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die Between Bodies EP This nearly half-hour-long EP starts out incredibly promising. Experimental, atmospheric emo ensemble the World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die open "blank#8" (the title hinting it might be a prelude to the opening track from last year's Whenever, If Ever) with wind chimes and eeri

Henrietta The Trick Is Not Minding It took six years for Orlando, Florida, act Henrietta to cobble enough songs together to comprise a proper full-length, but you can hear why they waited. The Trick Is Not Minding definitely sounds like an easy record to file with emo revival at times, but the band often sound wise beyond their years and, occasionally, eons ahead of the trends ...

Holy Tongues Weak People The title of Holy Tongues' Weak People tells no lie: On the trio's first full-length, there are a host of characters all dealing very poorly with various issues. On opener "Pale Light," it's proclaimed, "There's no hope at the end of the days." If someone's not s ...

Punch They Don't Have To Believe They Don't Have To Believe is the best tightly wound ball of rage and righteous indignation Bay Area hardcore act Punch have produced yet, following two searingly intense full-lengths and a 2011 EP that raised the stakes on the band's catch-all approach to the style. After ...

Chris Staples American Soft American Soft's title could very well be a self-effacing shot at Chris Staples' own musical history of heartbroken indie/emo-rock (twothirtyeight, Discover America), especially given the stripped-down, largely acoustic nature of this, his first bona fide solo venture on Barsuk Records. But ev ...

The Life And TImes Lost Bees Allen Epley has now been heading the Life And Times just as long as he was fronting Shiner, thriving on a fertile, creative mindset that's gotten just as much mileage out of breathy alternative/space rock as he did with the late-’90s/early 2000s post-hardcore math rockers. The Life ...

Rx Bandits Gemini, Her Majesty Rx Bandits spent several albums twisting and contorting the notions of modern ska-punk until it was no longer a recognizable part of their sound. Even before 2009's horn-depleted false farewell, Mandala, the band had earned the namesake "the Mars Vol-ska," a pun either complimentary of their prog-rock liberties or derisive of their overindulgence, depending

Park Jacob The Rabbit EP Park were an interesting anomaly among the mid-2000s emo lot. After lingering amid the local Midwest circuit in the late ’90s and early 2000s before finding a musical sweet spot on 2003's It Won't Snow Where You're Going, they provided a darker underground alternative to powerhouse acts of the time like Armor For Sleep and Matchbook Romance while retaining the nasal timbre

Joyce Manor Never Hungover Again The title of Joyce Manor's 2012 effort Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired proffered a self-fulfilling prophecy. While their sophomore album expanded the Torrance, California, band's scope to include alluring shades of new wave and lo-fi influence that pushed their power-pop-corroded punk into new waters, envisioning a hypothetical scenario where Guided By Voices

United Nations The Next Four Years United Nations were an act deliberately shrouded in mystery for some time. While Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly has been the face of the band since initially conceiving them in 2005, the act avoided possible record contract violations and lawsuits from the actual United Nations with all-star members like Glassjaw's Daryl Palumbo and Converge's Ben Koller playing

Braid No Coast There's no more glaring way to put the "Midwest" in "Midwest emo" than to title an album that claims coastal neutrality. Along with Cap'n Jazz and the Promise Ring, Braid helped cultivate the uncorked, spastically energetic 1990s emo strain that's now suddenly one of the most blogworthy around, resulting in thinkpieces and debates and generally extensive coverage

Annabel/Dowsing Split EP Annabel and Dowsing aren't exactly newcomers, with both acts boasting a pair of full-lengths and multiple EPs under their respective belts. It's no surprise then that both contribute a pair of strong tracks that mostly progress emo revival into new and interesting territory. Annabe ...

Three Man Cannon Pretty Many People Pretty Many People is Three Man Cannon's first full-length in four years. But since the Philadelphia and Scranton, Pennsylvania-based quartet filled the gap with an EP and a split full-length with Lee Corey Oswald, and oh yeah—members Pat Brier and Dennis Mishko were in that band Tigers Jaw, helping write a shit-ton of great songs with them before parting ways i

Foxing The Albatross Foxing own an interesting dichotomy on The Albatross, this being a remixed and remastered version of their full-length debut originally released by Count Your Lucky Stars in 2013. Their themes are classicist emo, singing about ex-lovers and lovers that never were, through obtuse metaphor ("Bloodhound") or otherwise ("I swear I'm a good man/So why don't you love

Frontier(s) White Lights EP Frontier(s) came on the scene in 2010, creating some excitement with ex-members of Elliott and Mouthpiece writing pretty solid, Revelation Records-style rock on a single and ensuing full-length. Then, they more or less disappeared ...

Floor Oblation Given the bevy of singles and endless on-again/off-again status of sludge/doom/stoner veterans Floor, Oblation is a pleasant full-length surprise. It's only their third overall, following the 2004 release of Dove (recorded in 1994) and 2002's self-titled, and very logically picks up where that 2002 album left off. But it' ...

Fucked Up Year Of The Dragon EP The latest installment in Fucked Up's Chinese Zodiac series features another sprawling, lengthy title track that defies easy categorization, and adds bonus goodies to bring the whole thing back down to earth. "Y ...

Tiny Empires Weird Headspace Tiny Empires are, in many ways, a very logical progression from Fest favorite O Pioneers!!!, who vocalist/guitarist Eric Solomon fronted a few years back. They retain his old band's loose, throaty, shouted, melodic-punk vibe, but perhaps thanks to the involvement of other experienced players (members of New Bruises, Senders and others), they're much more willing to str