Brian Shultz

Adventures/Run Forever Split EP This split features two bands' slightly varied takes on blisteringly earnest, rough-hewn, punky indie emo, setting the table for something great to come from both. Adventures kick it off with two new songs that follow a pair of EPs, the most recent being last year's quite promising Clear My Head With You. […]

Kittyhawk/Cherry Cola Champions Split EP This quick 10-minute split between two different strains of Midwest emo is a fairly enjoyable little gut-punch. With a sound akin to a fuzzier Lemuria or a less strained Rainer Maria, Kittyhawk deliver two highlights, as “The Green” and “The Red” churn with driving, mid-paced beats (and the former with quiet […]

Tigers Jaw devastated their fanbase this past March when they broke the news on their Tumblr that three founding members of the lineup–vocalist/guitarist Adam McIlwee, bassist Dennis Mishko, and drummer Pat Brier–would be leaving the band, leaving guitarist/vocalist Ben Walsh and keyboardist/vocalist Brianna Collins as the sole members responsible for continuing TJ's heartfelt, creative, scrappy […]

A Wilhelm Scream Partycrasher It's been six years since A Wilhelm Scream last graced the punk scene with a proper full-length of their expertly crafted, technically able, wisecracking style that nails that hidden sweet spot between grizzled skatepunk and melodic hardcore. Hell, it's been four years since they really gave us much of anything, but […]

Ghost Thrower Ghost Thrower Ghost Thrower's long-gestating full-length debut is a sprawling affair that shows the Boston/Brooklyn-based band metamorphisized once again. On a pair of introductory EPs for Equal Vision Records, ex-Therefore I Am guitarist Travis Alexander unleashed a somber sound that was delightfully miserable, imagining some hellish valley both Conor Oberst and Thursday might […]

Various Artists Off The Board: A Studio 4 Family Compilation Off The Board: A Studio 4 Compilation is essentially an unintentional follow-up to Run For Cover Records' 2011 collection, Mixed Signals. Like that compilation, it features new, unreleased songs from some of the best acts in contemporary punk and emo. Although more than half the bands […]

Maps For Travelers Change Your Name When Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is The Reason began to make waves in the mid-1990s, the intersections crossing the respective underground emo and alternative radio scenes started to look far bolder than previously thought. (Hell, just compare TITR's “The Day's Refrain” to Gin Blossoms' “Til I Hear […]

Dowsing I Don’t Even Care Anymore Dowsing might have been doomed to the lower depths of the annals chronicling modern Midwestern emo revival based on their ultra-scrappy demos, splits and their barely year-old LP debut, It's Still Pretty Terrible (a self-deprecating title only the band's harshest critics could really concur with). But the Chicago quintet […]

In Between Still EP In Between are mining an often neglected field of rich melodic punk/hardcore influences, and it helps them stand out in a curious way. On their third EP and No Sleep debut, In Between imagine Polar Bear Club staying musically truer to the inspiration responsible for the latter's name, Silent Majority, as […]