Brian Shultz

Xerxes Would You Understand? EP Xerxes' Would You Understand? EP offers two compositions to follow up last year's scrappy full-length, Our Home Is A Deathbed, and the band's evolution is already apparent. If “Grinstead” is the more retrogressive of the pair, it's only because it's raw, unbridled and more faithful to '90s emotional hardcore than […]

Eisley Currents Now that Eisley are free from major-label woes and have their own home studio to record in, it seems that their musical focus has sharpened up for the better. Currents comes just two years after 2011's The Valley (itself taking four after 2007's Combinations), and though Eisley have always dropped EPs full of […]

Their / They’re / There Their / They’re / There EP Evan Weiss must be on a mission to become the most prolific ambassador of the current melodic emo revival. This year alone promises a new Into It. Over It. album, the debut 7-inch from Pet Symmetry dropping soon and whispers of new Stay Ahead […]

Turnover Magnolia Turnover are a band true to their name. Their full-length debut, Magnolia, is a tremendous improvement for the Virginia Beach act, who ditch the generic, nasal pop-punk flair of their earlier EPs for a style of emo that can't be directly tied to just one movement of the last 15 years. It's similar […]

Some Stranger Some Stranger EP Some Stranger consist of vocalist Tym (from short-lived emo-rock outfit Daytrader) and guitarist Daniel Danger (who's played in many, less scene-affiliated bands, but best known as a visual artist with names like Star Wars and Arcade Fire on his resume). Together, they posit a question no one would have expected […]

Paint It Black Invisible EP Invisible marks the first batch of Paint It Black material in nearly four years, a six-song EP that may appear frustratingly abbreviated, but is actually viewed as a complete release by the band. (Savor it, because as frontman Dan Yemin recently told Brooklyn Vegan, “the album is a dead format” […]

Nightmares For A Week Civilian War Nightmares For A Week's debut, 2009's A Flood Tomorrow, was created with the sort of beginners' brilliance upstate New York punk simply seems to be blessed with lately. Like Polar Bear Club's The Redder, The Better, or Such Gold's Stand Tall, it was an EP that should have kickstarted […]

This Is Hell The Enforcer EP This Is Hell follow up their final effort for Rise Records, 2011's Black Mass, with this rather precise and defined holdover. The band deliver an EP where each of the four tracks has its own vibe: a mood-setting instrumental intro with a tasteful solo from guitarist Rick Jimenez (“Flag […]

HRVRD From The Bird’s Cage HRVRD inhabit the obscure ground between post-hardcore and alternative/indie rock, essentially sounding like what happens when emotional hardcore dudes discover effects pedals and spacey indie rock influences and put them to use with seriously creative ambition. While HRVRD’s members may or may not be hardcore dudes, that's really beside the […]