Oso Oso

Oso Oso is an emo/indie project primarily consisting of Jade Lilitri from Long Beach, New York. The project began in 2014 under the name osoosooso before being shortened to Oso Oso. Prior to beginning this solo endeavor, Lilitri was better known as a member of State Lines. Thus far they've released two stellar full-lengths, and a recent EP out on Triple Crown.

Sonically, this is a pretty tough project to pin down. Without a doubt they are one of the most unique and beloved modern emo bands around, though they don't really sound like a lot of their contemporaries. Instead, they take influence from major bands such as Death Cab For Cutie, Jimmy Eat World, and Built To Spill, and create these incredible songs with pop exteriors and emo interiors. Lilitri is an incredible lyricist, which has been obvious since the first State Lines record, but with Oso Oso he has really stepped up his craft to string together some beautiful lines to cut underneath the catchy melodies.

I can't recall exactly where I first heard this description (probably some online comment), but it was something along the lines of "Oso Oso is the sound of being sad at the beach", which is a pretty accurate description of their duality. This applies in particular to The Yunahon Mixtape, his most celebrated release. There's not much more to rant about here, this band has been requested to death for years upon years, so here ya finally go. Enjoy.

osoosooso (2014)

1. Moving In

2. A Bunch Of Things I Don't Know

3. Neighbors

4. Safe

5. The Expiration Date

6. Para 'effin dise, Baby!

7. Mike Isn't Down With Punctuation

Free Throw/Oso Oso (2014)

1. Free Throw - Grandma Got Runover By A Reindeer

2. Oso Oso - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Real Stories Of True People Who Kind Of Looked Like Monsters (2015)

1. Track One, Side A

2. Wet Grass or Cold Cement

3. Another Night

4. Where You've Been Hiding

5. How It Happened

6. Josephine

7. Interlude

8. Easy Way Out

9. This Must Be A Place

10. This Must Be An Entrance

11. This Must Be My Exit

The Yunahon Mixtape (2017)

1. the cool

2. reindeer games

3. the walk

4. the bearer of the truths

5. get there (when you're there)

6. great big beaches

7. shoes (the sneaker song)

8. the slope

9. the secret spot

10. the plant mouth

11. out of the blue

gb/ol h/nf (2018)

1. gb/ol h/nf

2. subside

basking in the glow (2019)

1. intro

2. the view

3. basking in the glow

4. dig

5. one sick plan

6. a morning song

7. priority change

8. wake up next to god

9. impossible game

10. charlie

sore thumb (2022)

1. computer exploder

2. nothing to do

3. father tracy

4. give a fork

5. all love

6. fly on the wall

7. describe you

8. pensacola

9. sunnyside

10. because i want to

11. nothing says love like hydration

12. carousel

De Facto (2022)

1. De Facto

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Belmont

Alrightalrightalright, you've spoken, I've heard the countless requests, and will finally deliver. Belmont are a five-piece pop punk band from Chicago, Illinois that formed in 2014. Following a few EP's, they dropped their self-titled debut full-length earlier this year. It also seems like they've built quite the following. Sonically, they sound like Knuckle Puck or Four Year Strong-lite or something of the sort; as you may know this is not exactly my area of expertise. It seems like a lot of you guys dig this band, so I'm more than happy to share their discography with ya anyway. Enjoy.

Vicissitude (2015)

1. Crossroads

2. Masquerade

3. Empty Shelf

4. Old Wounds

5. Convalescence

Between You & Me (2016)

1. 731

2. Solitude

3. Shackles

4. Overstepping

5. Minuscule

Water Weight / Step Aside (2017)

1. Water Weight

2. Step Aside

Belmont (2018)

1. Empty

2. Recluse

3. Write Me Off

4. Pushing Daisies

5. Interlude

6. Albert

7. Hollowed Out

8. Maplewood

9. Convalescence

10. BMC

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Coping

Coping were a four-piece emo/indie/punk band from Chicago, Illinois that formed in 2010 and broke up in 2012. Thank you to the person who mentioned them in that chatbox-thing, it completely slipped my mind that they aren't on here yet. Coping were one of the many incredible bands to emerge out of the "emo revival" thing, so expect shouted vocals, bright and noodly guitars, good songs and good times. Fans of Algernon Cadwallader, Growns Ups, and CSTVT will dig this (if you aren't already familiar with them). Enjoy.

Lawndale Cassette (2010)

1. Left Ear

2. Croquet

3. '95 Mariners

4. Mixed Horror Stories

5. Robert Pershing Wadlow

6. Seniors

Coping/The Clippers (2011)

1. Coping - Stoopin'

2. Coping - F For Now

3. The Clippers - Fur

4. The Clippers - That's Not Me

Nope (2012)

1. Somewhere in Skokie

2. B

3. Everything No Problem

4. Where's A.T. At?

5. Teach Me How To Fish

6. Ro' Money Ro' Problems

7. Love Tigress

8. Knuckle Puck

9. #72 East

10. Double Perfect

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Nervous Dater

Nervous Dater are a four-piece indie/pop punk band from Brooklyn, New York that have been around since 2015. They play a style of music that features fuzzy chords, melodic lead lines and upbeat tempos juxtaposed with some amazing lyrics that recall personal anecdotes and feelings. It's kind of like a poppy Rainer Maria meeting the lyrical density of Hop Along and raw energy of Say Anything, or something of the sort. That's probably not a very good description, but the music's good. Really good. Top-notch songwriting with a fantastic energy that they can speed up or slow down with ease. Their debut LP Don't Be A Stranger came out last year on Counter Intuitive, and they've been getting bigger ever since. Definitely a band to look out for, with a fantastic debut already out to enjoy. So, enjoy.

Nervous Dater (2014)

1. Kool-Aid

2. Hard Love

3. Queens

4. Chameleon

5. Die Alone

A Hundred Beers (2016)

1. Abba Zabba, You My Only Friend

2. Scabs

3. Kelly Said

4. Dead Space

5. 5th Floor Walkup

Don't Be A Stranger (2017)

1. Bad Spanish

2. Fun Dumpster

3. Don't Be A Stranger

4. Serenity

5. Pigeon Language

6. Vominos

7. Run Home

8. Stockton Syndrome

9. Saratoga

10. Wavelengths

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Counter Intuitive

Make Me

Make Me were a five-piece screamo/emo band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that formed in 2004 and broke up in 2006. Their output was fairly limited, releasing only a demo, a split, and some various compilation/unreleased tracks. However, they were an incredibly solid band and quire underrated. They took the shimmering, clean, and melancholic guitars of American Football and blended them with the intensive throat-shrieking vocals of You And I, or something of the sort. A good descriptor might be "upbeat screamo", or Merchant Ships pre-Merchant Ships. I don't know, it's good shit. Enjoy.

Demo (2004)

1. Rubber Sidewalks

2. Hello Moon

3. Relax And Adapt

4. Let's Go Off On A Tangent

Split With Black JuJu (2006)

1. Snail Trails

2. Do You Ever Wish You Could Breathe Underwater?

Unreleased

But It Felt So Real

Untitled #1

Untitled #2

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meth.

meth. are a six-piece "noisecore" band from Chicago, Illinois that have been around since 2017. They play an incredibly dark, noisy, and dissonant style of music that blend genres such as metalcore, black metal, drone, powerviolence, screamo, and grindcore to form this bludgeoning sound. It's an orchestra of drills and hammers, with shrieks and guttural moans as its conductor. These tracks come together in menacing chaos and hyperactive tension, and this band has truly blown me away. They released an EP earlier this year, the wonderfully titled I Love You, and another incredible one last year. I cannot recommend this enough for fans of music that's been pushed past an extreme limit, because this has definitely knocked me on my ass. Enjoy.

The Children Are Watching (2017)

1. The Bed In The Forest

2. Hazelona

3. The Mother's Garden

4. It Wasn't An Accident

5. Elder Body

6. Buried In The Woods (Bonus Track)

I Love You (2018)

1. Opaque Release

2. Shuttering Impulse

3. Prayer In Shallow Water

4. Ascend And Dispose

5. You Are Home

Mother of Red Light (2019)

1. Failure

2. Child of God

3. Swallowed Conscience

4. Her Womb Lays Still

5. Inbred

6. Cold Prayers

7. Psalm Of Life

8. Return Me (My Body)
9. The Walls, They Whisper

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Sleep Debt

Sleep Debt are a four-piece screamo/emoviolence band from Minneapolis, Minnesota that formed (presumambly) this year. They recently released their self-titled debut EP, which features 5 untitled tracks of jarring, intense music. Sonically, they can be likened to bands like Louise Cyphre, Ampere, and Loma Prieta for their off-kilter rhythms, dissonant guitars, assaulting vocals and dark atmosphere. This is definitely a fantastic debut, with hopefully a lot more good stuff coming down the pipeline. Enjoy.

Sleep Debt (2018)

1. Untitled #1

2. Untitled #2

3. Untitled #3

4. Untitled #4

5. Untitled #5

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Ghost Spirit / Frail Hands SPLIT REVIEW

Super excited about this new split 12" featuring Ghost Spirit and Frail Hands, which is coming out August 24th. Both of these bands put out absolutely crushing debut albums last year (coincidentally both self-titled), and are returning with a fury on this new split. With Jack Shirley at the production helm, this record sounds absolutely fantastic, with both sides just tearing it up. It's a joint release by Twelve Gauge Records and Blue Swan Records, set for release next Friday. Below is just some of my rambling thoughts on it, but to keep it short, this split is a scorcher, and one that cannot be missed by any fan of modern screamo with a hardcore spirit. You can stream and pre-order it below.

The first side of the split is kicked off by LA's Ghost Spirit, a four-piece band featuring members of Lord Snow, Tower of Silence, Seeing Means More and Letters to Catalonia. With such an impeccable line-up, the music is bound to deliver, and deliver it does. Ghost Spirit take the first 6 tracks of this split, and they immediately kick in with "Sick Dreams", featuring nuanced, angular chords, pumping drum beats, and shrieked vocals. Stylistically, they come somewhere between the raw, emotional outpouring of The Spirit Versailles and the melodic chaos of a band like Raein. Even in the first track, Ghost Spirit establish themselves as a versatile act. The second track "The Guilt Of Your Affection" is a definite highlight, beginning with bright guitars and sung vocals before breaking down into this off-beat syncopation, which is jarring in the most intense of ways. They conclude by hammering down on some heavy chords with layered vocals, which closes out this 2 and half minute epic.

"A Hollow Peak" offers up one of the most impassioned vocal deliveries I've heard recently, while "Dark Winter" and "Skull" are excellent examples of subtle dynamic use. The closer, "In Parting" is another highlight, beginning with some melodic chords and singing that plays out like Sunny Day Real Estate as a screamo band. This is by far the longest track on this split (over 5 minutes), and it builds to a cavernous snare-roll median, with quiet arpeggios and spoken word atop it. As the vocals became more desperate and layered, the instrumental builds up to an incredible climax that warrants an Envy comparison (the highest of compliments, of course). Lyrically, this entire side is incredible and could be read as poetry, but this song in particular I wanted to shout out, since they hit pretty close to home. Ghost Spirit's side truly blew me away, with every track offering something slightly different, and their members displaying a true perfection of their art.

The second side is dominated by Halifax's Frail Hands, a fairly new band who broke incredible ground last year with their debut LP. They tear through songs all under the 2-minute mark, with a distinct sense melody buried underneath their chaos. Sonically, they're fairly reminiscent of bands like Loma Prieta and the incredibly underrated Mahria. Following their LP, I was excited to see where they would go next, and this split is a progression and testament to their already incredible sound. With 6 songs in under 9 minutes, they waste no time pulling their punches.  Even as the first track, "The Image Of You" begins at a quiet pace, I got a sense of immediate tension and adrenaline for what's about to come. The band falls into chaotic bliss, hammering out chords and drums with these strained, animalistic vocals seething beneath. Coming off the melodic (a word I use VERY loosely) first side, this is immediately darker and more aggressive, an excellent juxtaposition and a big reason this split works so well.

"Mortar And Pestle" is a flurry of relentless feedback, blast beats and cymbals, while "Collateral" presents a few more instrumental change-ups, giving the listener a second (in near-literal terms) to breathe before their chaos resumes. "Atonement" makes incredible use of a subtle tremolo effect at times (could just be a neck bend, but it sounds awesome). Totally irrelevant to this, but it made me imagine Loveless being covered by screamo bands, which is now something I want in my life. Anyway, the following two tracks are definite highlights on this split. "In Conclusion" packs a heavy emotional punch, with some amazing vocals and chord choices. Those flashes of melodic lead lines near the end are simply fantastic. The closer, "Every Volatile Thing" blasts in with this glorious-sounding tremolo pattern and snare roll. This track is crushing with its seamless blend of melody and dissonance, and the perfect outro for this entire split.

Overall, as you can probably tell by my wall-of-text rant, I love this split. These two bands are easily some of the best offerings in today's screamo scene, and though they don't sound quite a like, they compliment each other perfectly through these 12 tracks. I cannot recommend checking this out enough, and if you haven't, go back and check out their debuts from last year too. You can listen to the album below, and pre-order the record as well, which will be officially released on August 24. Enjoy.

PRE-ORDER

Ghost Spirit

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Frail Hands

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Twelve Gauge Records
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Blue Swan Records
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It Looks Sad.

It Looks Sad. are a two-piece (formerly a 3 and 4 piece) indie rock band from Charlotte, North Carolina that formed in 2012. Originally called It Looks Sad, That's Why I Said It's You, they shortened their name in 2013. Thus far they've put out two EPs, both with Tiny Engines, and a recent track from their upcoming debut full-length. It Looks Sad. take influence from bands like Modern Baseball and Beach Fossils, featuring melancholic, shouted vocals, spindly arpeggios, and reverb-washed chords that fill a room. Their second EP, Kaiju is a two-track masterpiece, which has garnered them quite a bit of attention. Following that they put out a compilation aptly titled Lost Songs, which showed the band moving in a washed out, lo-fi electronic, whisper-thin vocal direction. The recently released track from their debut, "Light" suggests that this is officially the band's new sound. It's still definitely sad, and an LP I'm curiously looking forward to. Enjoy.

Seasons (2014)

1. Seasons

It Looks Sad. (2014)

1. Radical

2. Fingers

3. Raccoon

4. Ocean

Kaiju (2015)

1. Creature

2. Nagoya

Lost Songs (2017)

1. Crush

2. Meteor

3. Jack Freeman

4. leaf/crazy2

Light (2018)

1. Light

Sky Lake (2018)

1. Shave

2. Bike

3. Sisters

4. Light

5. Faded

6. Seaweed

7. Drool

8. Graves

9. Everyday

10. Palme

11. Fantasy

12. Pig

13. Moria

14. Visor

15. Stranger

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Tiny Engines

Eldritch Anisette

Eldritch Anisette were a four-piece emo/indie/punk band from Newark, Delaware that were briefly around from 1996 to 1997. They only released one 7", in addition to a demo. Sonically, they sound like a mix of Everyone Asked About You, Evergreen, and a punkier Sunny Day Real Estate, or something like that. They play with occasionally noodley guitar bits, melodic bass lines, washy chords, and melodic lead vocals (aside from the vicious backing vocals on "Dissection of Silence"). Their 7" is only three tracks but absolutely incredible and super underrated. You can also check out an interview with their vocalist here, which is also where I got the demo from, so thanks to them for that. Ya also might need a translator. Enjoy.

Eldritch Anisette (1997)

1. Suckerpunch

2. Pessimism Goes To Work

3. Dissection of Silence

Demo (1997)

1. Japan

2. Suckerpunch

3. Untitled

4. Dissection Of Silence

5. Pessimism Goes To Work

6. Secondhanded

Ostraca

Ostraca are a three-piece screamo band from Richmond, Virginia. They began in 2009 as four-piece under the name Kilgore Trout, but changed names in 2015, thus becoming Ostraca. They play an intensely dark, chaotic and dissonant style of screamo/emoviolence that harkens back to their Virginia forefathers pg.99 and Majority Rule, with some ear-shattering vocals to boot. They also play with enough progressive, winding song structures to put them in league with bands like City of Caterpillar. Their past two releases are some of the best screamo released in recent years, so I highly suggest you get on it. Enjoy.

Deathless (2015)

1. without articulation

2. half transformed

3. when is it ever different

4. pyrrhic

5. another mask

6. all watched over

Faces Of The Moving Year (2017)

1. Ostraca - The Lucid Outline

2. Ostraca - All I Was, In Ashes

3. Ostraca - Decay And Fall

4. Flesh Born - Unredeemable

5. Flesh Born - Many Ports

6. Flesh Born - Of The Same Earth

7. Flesh Born - Existence, Our Exile

8. Flesh Born - Nothingness, Our Home

Last (2017)

1. Waiting For The Crash

2. The Orchard

3. Childlike

4. Nausea

5. Confronting Imagism

6. Worn Away

Enemy (2018)

1. big star

2. graven

3. crisis

4. pulses

5. in passing

6. nemesis

Disaster (2023)

1. Constellation

2. Heaven Is Still

3. Stage Whisper

4. Whilom

5. Rebuke

6. Song For A Frieze

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Skeletal Lightning

Casanovas In Heat

Casanovas In Heat are a four-piece punk band from Boston, Massachusetts that formed in 2010. They play a high-energy & good-times style of punk in the vein of bands like The Replacements, which yield some chorus-laden guitars, catchy hooks, and reckless riffs played at furious speeds. After a few incredible 7"'s, they went to record their debut LP in 2015. For multiple reasons, its release was delayed until early 2018. Thankfully this thing is out, because every song absolutely shreds. This band's got great songs and a great attitude, and although they don't seem to be active anymore, have left some potent material to kick out the jams to. Enjoy.

Ruins (2012)

1. Calling Bluffs

2. Izmir Stinger

3. Jodi Boy

4. Ruins

Belvidere b/w Destiny St. (2014)

1. Belvidere

2. Destiny St.

Twisted Steel, Sex Appeal (2018)

1. Wet Dreamin'

2. 2nd Wind

3. Against The Grain

4. Lolita

5. Destiny St.

6. Future Ex-Girlfriends

7. Omens

8. Belvidere

9. Jaded

10. Nitehawk

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