Ogbert The Nerd

Ogbert The Nerd are a four-piece punk/emo band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that formed in 2018. They dropped an EP the following year, their debut full-length in 2020, and their sophomore effort, What You Want back in July of this year, which is what first caught my attention. This is the good shit right here. The band plays a punchier, more frenetic version of emo revival, with doubled vocals that demand every line be shouted along with. These songs are catchy, their lyrics poignant, and the energy unbridled, all telltale signs of a solid emo/punk release. If you're a fan of bands such as Snowing, Algernon Cadwallader, Glocca Morra, and Spraynard, with Joyce Manor and Jeff Rosenstock leanings, this is the band you've been waiting for. Enjoy.

EP (2019)

1. Rats! It Didn't Work!

2. Enter: Mungus Borgar

3. It's Fine (I'm Fine)

I Don't Hate You (2020)

1. Get In The Robot

2. Do It For Elio

3. Buddies Lite Lime

4. Really, It's Fine

5. You Like The Raiders

6. Matthew Renzo vs The Hoboken Parking Authority

7. Mungus Borgar Rides Again

8. Snail

9. Rats! It Didn't Work!

10. Malkmus

11. Twenty-Four

Bric-à-brac Edition

A New Kind Of Borkulator (2022)

1. A New Kind Of Borkulator

What You Want (2024)

1. Don't Quit, Get Fired

2. For Posterity

3. Brunson Lied

4. Bike Cops

5. Just Like Always

6. Purple Roses

7. Raspberries

8. Twelve Dollar Snickers

9. Dragon Song

Bandcamp

Spotify

Apple Music

Twitter

Instagram

Deadguy

Following the Kiss It Goodbye post, you know it wouldn't be much longer until Deadguy made their appearance on here. Deadguy were a five-piece metalcore band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that began in 1994 and 1997. Despite their very short tenure, they have become one of the most influential bands in metalcore. Their sole LP Fixation On A Coworker is an absolute staple of the genre, right up there with albums like We Are The Romans or Give Them Rope (albeit less math-y than those two). Deadguy just never got the same widespread reverance as albums like the aforementioned, which is unfortunate for such a seminal band. They were also a major influence on The Dillinger Escape Plan, which tells you all you need to know. Following a few 7"'s and their debut full-length, the band split off, with vocalist Tim Singer and guitarist Keith Huckins (formerly of Rorschach) moving to Seattle to form the aforementioned Kiss It Goodbye in 1996. In Deadguy's final year, bassist Tim Naumann switched to vocals, with a new bassist and guitarist being added to the line-up. This iteration of Deadguy only recorded one EP before splitting in 1997.

They were hinting at a reunion earlier this year. There was a  documentary announcement slated for release in fall 2020, though it appears to remain unreleased as of right now. Regardless, this band is absolute essential, and along with Kiss It Goobye's She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, some of the best and most definitive releases metalcore has to offer. Enjoy.

Just because it's Christmas, grab their full discography in one easy link here.

White Meat (1994)

1. Druid

2. The Extremist

3. John Dear

Work Ethic (1994)

1. Running With Scissors

2. Apparatus

3. Puny Human

Fixation On A Coworker (1995)

1. Doom Patrol

2. Pins And Needles

3. Die With Your Mask On

4. Baby Arm

5. Makeshift Atomsmasher

6. The Extremist

7. Nine Stitches

8. Riot Stairs

9. Apparatus

10. Crazy Eddie

Screamin' With The Deadguy Quintet (1996)

1. Human Pig

2. (Escape From) The Fake Clink

3. Turk 182

4. Free Mustache Rides

5. Angry Dwarf

6. Prosthetic Head

Violent World: A Tribute To The Misfits (1997)

10. Horror Business (Misfits cover)

I Know Your Tragedy (2000)

1. (Escape From) The Fake Clink

2. Doom Patrol

3. Die With Your Mask On

4. Human Pig/The Extremist

5. Makeshift Atomsmasher

6. Baby Arm

7. Pins and Needles

8. Turk 182

9. Apparatus

10. John Dear

11. Electric Funeral (Black Sabbath cover)

Note: Live set at CBGBs, except last track which is a demo

Near-Death Travel Services (2025)

1. Kill Fee

2. Barn Burner

3. New Best Friend

4. Cheap Trick

5. The Forever People

6. War With Strangers

7. Knife Sharpener

8. The Alarmist

9. The Long Search for Perfect Timing

10. All Stick & No Carrot

11. Wax Princess

Spotify

Apple Music

Fluoride

 Fluoride are a three-piece grindcore/emoviolence band from New Brunswick, New Jersey (now seemingly split between NYC and Philadelphia) that began in 2016. They scratch the itch of many fans along the extreme music spectrum, including grindcore, powerviolence, and screamo, all while still chipping away at other sounds just semi-related to them. Basically, what I'm getting at is this is a band not easily tied down by blanket genre statements, but a band with a strong statement nonetheless. Absolutely recommended to check out if you're a fan of seeing the extent an amplifier can be stressed to. Enjoy.

fluoride (2017)

1. retributivism

2. cool guy backed hard

3. due process

4. tunnel vision

5. restraint

6. offset

7. bloodroot

8. death sentence

disentanglement (2019)

1. degrade

2. alienate

3. suffocate

4. chipped away

5. still time

6. regenerate

7. neglect

8. thought reform

9. black ash

10. unconditional

11. hoax

12. deterioration

Bandcamp

Facebook

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

Bandcamp

Thursday

Here's the perfect band to start off a jet black new year. They've been consistently requested over the years, which makes sense considering the massive amount of influence they've have on some bands on here, while still being a very well-known band in their own right.

Thursday were a six-piece post-hardcore band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that formed in 1997 and came to an end in 2011. They emerged just as popular post-hardcore/emo/alternative acts such as Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, and Alexisonfire hit it big in the early 2000's, a wave they became front-runners of very quickly. After releasing their debut album Waiting in 1999, their breakthrough album came in 2001 with Full Collapse, which spawned a ton of songs that have become staples of the band, such as "Understanding In A Car Crash", "Cross Out The Eyes", "Paris In Flames", and "Standing On The Edge Of Summer". They continued this success on their follow-up War All The Time, which was their heaviest material to date. It also showed a glimpse of them becoming the overtly political force they later would, in addition to the deeply personal lyrics they had gotten their start with. A City By The Light Divided showcased a band continue to experiment, but with a lot more melody this time around. On Common Existence they again did a double-take and released some of their most aggressive and straight-forward material. Their sixth and final album No Devolución broke apart from their origins by including tons of atmospheric and post-rock influence, which isn't surprising considering their collaboration with Envy a few years later and a staggering Sigur Rós cover even earlier on in their career.

As aforementioned, Thursday took a break in 2011. Their hiatus was officially declared as a breakup in 2013, though the band's future is still in the air. Vocalist Geoff Rickly remains quite active, most notably as a member of United Nations, who got their start in the middle of Thursday's career. He also started another band called No Devotion, which released their debut album last year. Regardless, it's Thursday's legacy we're talking about here, so below is their discography. Let me know if you have anything I'm missing by them, and enjoy.

1999 Summer Tour EP (1999)

1. Ian Curtis

2. Porcelain

3. This Side of Brightness

4. Wind-Up

5. Dying In New Brunswick

6. Mass As Shadows

Waiting (1999)

1. Porcelain

2. This Side Of Brightness

3. Ian Curtis

4. Introduction

5. Streaks In The Sky

6. In Transmission

7. Dying In New Brunswick

8. The Dotted Line

9. Where The Circle Ends

Full Collapse (2001)

1. A0001

2. Understanding In A Car Crash

3. Concealer

4. Autobiography Of A Nation

5. A Hole In The World

6. Cross Out The Eyes

7. Paris in Flames

8. I Am The Killer

9. Standing On The Edge of Summer

10. Wind-Up

11. How Long Is The Night?

Five Stories Falling (2002)

1. Autobiography Of A Nation (Live)

2. Understanding In A Car Crash (Live)

3. Standing On The Edge of Summer (Live)

4. Paris In Flames (Live)

5. Jet Black New Year

War All The Time (2003)

1. For The Workforce, Drowning

2. Between Rupture and Rapture

3. Division St.

4. Signals Over The Air

5. Marches And Maneuvers

6. Asleep In The Chapel

7. This Song Brought To You By A Falling Bomb

8. Steps Ascending

9. War All The Time

10. M. Shepard

11. Tomorrow I'll Be You

12. Ný Batterí (Sigur Rós cover) [Japanese Bonus Track]

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland Soundtrack (2005)

12. Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) [The Buzzcocks cover]

A City By The Light Divided (2006)

1. The Other Side Of The Crash/Over And Out (Of Control)

2. Counting 5-4-3-2-1

3. Sugar In The Sacrament

4. At This Velocity

5. We Will Overcome

6. Arc-Lamps, Signal Flares, A Shower Of White (The Light)

7. Running From The Rain

8. Telegraph Avenue Kiss

9. The Lovesong Writer

10. Into The Blinding Light

11. Autumn Leaves Revisited

Kill The House Lights (2007)

1. Ladies And Gentlemen: My Brother, The Failure

2. Dead Songs

3. Voices On A String

4. Signals Over The Air (Live At Starland Ballroom)

5. How Long Is The Night (Original Intro)

6. A Sketch For Time's Arrow

7. Panic On The Streets Of Health Care City

8. The Roar Of Far Off Black Jets

9. Paris In Flames (Demo)

10. Telegraph Avenue Kiss (Rich Costey Mix)

11. Wind Up (Demo)

12. Music From Kill The House Lights (Demo)

Thursday/Envy (2008)

1. Thursday - As He Climbed The Dark Mountain

2. Thursday - In Silence

3. Thursday - An Absurd And Unrealistic Dream Of Peace

4. Thursday - Appeared And Was Gone

5. Envy - An Umbrella Fallen Into Fiction

6. Envy - Isolation Of A Light Source

7. Envy - Pure Birth And Loneliness

Common Existence (2009)

1. Resuscitation Of A Dead Man

2. Last Call

3. As He Climbed The Dark Mountain

4. Friends In The Armed Forces

5. Beyond The Visible Spectrum

6. Times Arrow

7. Unintended Long Term Effects

8. Circuits Of Fever

9. Subway Funeral

10. Love Has Led Us Astray

11. You Were The Cancer

No Devolución (2011)

1. Fast To The End

2. No Answers

3. A Darker Forest

4. Sparks Against The Sun

5. Open Quotes

6. Past And Future Ruins

7. Magnets Caught in A Metal Heart

8. Empty Glass

9. A Gun In The First Act

10. Millimeter

11. Turnpike Divides

12. Stay True

In Utero, In Tribute, In Entirety (2014)

4. Rape Me (Nirvana cover)

Note: Full comp here

Gates

Gates are a five-piece post-rock/indie band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that formed in 2011. Their debut full-length, Bloom And Breathe came out on Pure Noise Records, following the release of two EP's. Stylistically speaking, Gates have a lot in common with Moving Mountains. They both make heavy use of the reverb/delay-laden guitar melodies that bands like Explosions In The Sky are the father, son, and holy ghost of. In addition to that, Gates features very prominent vocals, which are often catchy and melodic. The whole "indie" aspect of them is very comparable to Lydia, who their guitarist used to play in. Random sidenote, but if you haven't heard Lydia's first two albums, listen to them, especially Illuminate. Enjoy.

The Sun Will Rise And Lead Me Home (2011)

1. A Vague Ambition

2. Walls

3. Burned Us Alive

4. In The Morning

5. At The End Of All Things

6. Sleepwalker

You Are All You Have Left To Fear (2012)

1. They See Only Shadows

2. Like This You Mean

3. Cast In The Pattern

4. To Those Who Fell...

5. ...And To Those Who Carry On

6. The Sound Of Letting Go

Bloom & Breathe (2014)

1. Everything That Has Ever Been

2. Bloom

3. Persist In Delusion

4. Not My Blood

5. Light The First Page

6. The Thing That Would Save You

7. Nothing You'll Miss

8. At Last The Loneliest Of Them

9. Born Dead

10. Marrow

11. Low

12. Again At The Beginning

13. Everything That Always Will Be

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Website

You And I

"I'm erasing you, and I'm happy. You did it to me first."

Valentine's Day, 2015. We started with The Saddest Landscape in 2013, continued with iwrotehaikusaboutcannibalisminyouryearbook in 2014, but what band best documents this lonely day for 2015? Of course there are a ton of amazing albums out there to accompany a broken heart today (Bright Eyes' Fevers & Mirrors, the Mountain Goats' Get Lonely, Carissa's Weird's Songs About Leaving, etc.), but we need to continue the skramz tradition of melodrama and bleeding intensity. After much deliberation, New Jersey's You And I have won out for this year's lonely boy band.

You And I were a five-piece screamo/emo violence band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that were active from 1996 to 1999, and briefly reunited in 2011. The band's poetic lyrics, over-the-top vocals, as well as melodic sensibility proves that chaos is more than them. They were more in the realm of bands like Saetia, with constant loud/quiet dynamics, occassionally spoken vocals, and heavy guitars. Their songs would often explore numerous ideas, adding to the passionate intensity they played with, and when they hit a climax, the result is the equivalent of a group of guys crying on the floor with pictures of their ex. And that sound is sweet. And relevant to what most of you will be spent this day doing. Dismiss it as a meaningless holiday, but there's no denying it's a day to wallow in pity parties and exaggerated sorrow. It's as cheesy as how she liked her pizza. Enjoy.

You And I (1997)

1. Something To Remember

2. Heart's Divide

3. Silent Morning Whisper

4. Seascape

Saturday's Cab Ride Home (1997)

1. Someday I'll Say Goodbye

2. Absence

3. Memory Loss

4. We All Bleed

5. When We Were One

6. Revision

7. Nights Like These

8. Smile

9. Saturdays Cab Ride Home

Within The Frame (1998)

1. Forever Lasts A Moment

2. Achilles

3. All Imperfect Things

4. A Day That Passes Through

5. No Guilt On New Year's Morning

The Curtain Falls (1999)

1. Tell Me About Your Childhood

2. Brock Landers And The Mustang Cake

3. Playing Off The Story

4. 143 (JCM)

5. I Think I Know Where Elvis Lives

6. Pulse

7. Threading A Needle

8. Two Down, One To Go

Dads

Thanks to Anonymous and Awo for the request.

Dads are a two-piece punk/emo/indie band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that began in 2010. They play math-y twinkly emo jams that straight up kick ass. They're still super energetic, but have a bummer-y vibe to them with the lyrics and whatnot. They're a killer band that you should check out if you haven't heard them yet. This band offers most of their stuff for free on their Bandcamp, which is the exact reason why you should make some effort to support them. Enjoy.

FFO: Japandroids, Cloud Nothings, Snowing, Prawn, Dowsing, Spraynard

Brush Your Teeth ;) (2011)

1. Dan's Christopher Walken Impersonation

2. I Don't Wanna Fuck With Another Dude's Snacks

3. Pass Me The Ball

4. I Didn't Say Pass Me The Ball

Brush Your Teeth, Again ;) (2011)

1. Dan's Christopher Walken Impersonation

2. I Don't Wanna Fuck With Another Dude's Snacks

3. Pass Me The Ball

4. I Didn't Say Pass Me The Ball

5. Dos Penes Duros

6. The Deer In The Basement

7. New Pantera

8. Dan's D'Angelo Impersonation

American Radass (this is important) (2012)

1. If Your Song Title Has the Word "Beach" In It, I'm Not Listening To It

2. Get To The Beach

3. Honestly, Chroma Q&A

4. Aww, C'mon Guys

5. Shit Twins

6. Grunt Work (The '69 Sound)

7. Groin Twerk

8. Big Bag of Sandwiches

9. Bakefast at Piffanys

10. Heavy to the Touch (think about tonight, forget about tomorrow)

Pretty Good (2013)

1. My Crass Patch

2. Can I Be Yr Deadbeat Boyfriend

3. Boat Rich

4. No We're Not Actually

I Guess This Is Growing Up Volume 1 (2014)

1. Lions - Man Overboard

2. Invalids - Lemmings

3. Tir Asleen - Wendy Clear

4. Dads - Adam's Song

5. Slingshot Dakota - Stay Together For The Kids

6. We'll Die Smiling - Dammit

I'll Be The Tornado (2014)

1. Grand Edge, MI

2. Chewing Ghosts

3. The Romantic Ocean

4. Fake Knees

5. Sold Year / Transitions

6. You Hold Back

7. But

8. Sunburnt Jet Wings

9. Take Back Today

10. Only You

11. Do You Still Think Of Me? (Bonus)

Compilation Songs

Soccer Dads (Fifa World Fuck)

Gold Soundz (Pavement cover)

Adam's Song (blink-182 cover)

Bandcamp

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