Sophie's Floorboard: Angry Son

One post, two bands. Strangely enough, this isn't the first time that's happened on here. I recently heard this fantastic new EP by the Angry Son from Japan, which reminded me of the American Angry Son from the early 90's, so it seemed fitting to cover both.

Angry Son are a screamo band from Japan that have been around since at least 2021. They've released three EP's so far, with two out this year. They play a blistering, chaotic style of screamo with some scorching vocals, which balances out with quiet arpeggios and gorgeous, shimmering tones. Not much more needs to be said really, from the first minute of "Sublime" off their latest Pranks For The Memories, they had my undivided attention while I delved into the rest of their discography. This is some amazing stuff, and no doubt a highlight for the genre in 2022. Fans of bands like Loma Prieta, Funeral Diner, and Sans Visage should definitely check this out. Enjoy.

3 songs (2021)

1. 祇園の夜

2. 散歩詩

3. 鴨川

4 songs (2022)

1. Indifference

2. Dialogue

3. Flicker

4. 回想録

Pranks For The Memories (2022)

1. Sublime

2. Transmit Failure

3. Sinking

4. Untitled

Bandcamp

Spotify

Apple Music

Angry Son were a four-piece hardcore/emo band from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that were around from 1990 to 1991. They played a melodic, heart-on-your-sleeve offshoot of punk directly influenced by bands like Rites of Spring, Embrace, Swiz, Moss Icon and The Hated. I've covered my fair share of relatively obscure bands from this early era of "emo" here, and I cannot understate how hard it is to find info on these bands, as most of them only exist in decade-old vinyl rips and a one-line bio on Discogs or something of the sort. There is an entire website dedicated to the documentation of Angry Son, including pictures, flyers, setlists, band history, etc. This is unprecedented, so I do encourage everybody to check it out here. An interesting anecodote, it does credit their name to the lyric from "Hidden Wheel" by Rites of Spring. It's often forgotten that the phrase originated there, years before Indian Summer came along and cemented it in one of the genre's most landmark songs.

Below is the majority of their discography. Their biggest release was the split with Fuel, which is all I had heard from them prior to this post. It's a fantastic split on both sides (the Fuel song in particular is incredible), with the cleanest sounding production. Diving into the demo and Yesterday were pleasant surpises, with the shaking vocals, melodic bass lines, and bright chords making for a raw take on a sound still in its early stages, similar to contemporaries like Admiral or Downcast. As for their other material, admittedly the audio quality of Skinny Criminal's Demo is pretty abysmal. I don't know if it's the original recording or the mp3 rip, but it's pretty rough to listen to. Same goes for Live At Trees, though that's more expected considering it's a live set. It's cool to have these for posterity's sake, but besides that, it's best to steer towards their other material. Enjoy.