mewithoutYou

mewithoutYou are a five-piece indie rock/post-hardcore band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They started in 2000, and have been active ever since. They have been constantly evolving throughout their years, and have consistently created some amazing pieces of work. Whether they are letting out blood-curling screams of agony and loss to the orchestra of distorted, dissonant guitars, or singing folks songs about foxes and poorly knit sweaters, these guys are flawless. As I'm sure many of you already know, since they are a very noteworthy band in the style of music usually covered on here, and they get a ton of requests. As they should, because everything this band has done needs to be heard. 

The band is fronted by brothers Aaron and Michael Weiss (vocals and guitar respectively, among other instruments). They, along with drummer Rickie Mazzotta and numerous other musicians with varying tenures have defined the band's sound. Vocally they are very distinct. Aaron Weiss' spoken-word style emulates bands such as Moss Icon and Slint that came before them, and that is now popular because of bands like La Dispute and Listener (both of which take considerable influence from mewithoutYou). Aaron's vocals are tortured, whether he be speaking, singing, or screaming. His lyrics are very literate, detailed, and poetic,  heavily utilizing metaphors, imagery, and symbolism. They often make reference to literary and musical sources, as well as focus heavily on religion. A lot of mewithoutYou's work (lyrics, song titles, album names, artwork) are of religious nature, though the band aren't what you could call a "religious" band. They incorporate Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. into their work, usually religion as an all-encompassing concept to convey their ideologies. It is very artful, and even people of no religion can understand and relate to. 

Their sound is very experimental, from early on to very recently. They use a lot of effects, try out different instrumentation, incorporate elements from different genres, all while making songs that sound like them. Keeping that in mind, their earlier material is much more electric guitar-based, with much more intensity and bite to their sound. Around the Brother, Sister and It's All Crazy!... era is when they really began switching from the post-hardcore of their early career and the introduction of their new, acoustic/folk driven sound. Their last album, Ten Stories, featured a nice mixture of both. Personally, I tend to gravitate towards their first two albums as favourites, but everything they have done is extraordinary and worth listening to. This is maybe with the exception of their earlier EP's, which are good and insanely angry and intense, but have subpar production work that could deter some. Still try them out though, especially if their first album really resonates with you. Enjoy!

Blood Enough For Us All (2000)

1. The Comfort You Give Is Only Torment

2. Flamethrower

3. Working In A Factory

4. I Dare You To Pick Someone To Fight Me

5. There Is Hope For A Tree Cut Down

6. Song For A Rapist

I Never Said That I Was Brave (2001)

1. I Never Said That I Was Brave

2. Flamethrower

3. Dying Is Strange

4. We Know Who Our Enemies Are

5. Four Word Letter

Norma Jean/mewithoutYou (2002)

1. Norma Jean - I Used To Hate Cellphones

2. Norma Jean - The Shotgun Message

3. mewithoutYou - Bullet To Binary

4. mewithoutYou - Gentlemen

[A-B] Life (2002)

1. Bullet To Binary

2. The Ghost

3. Nice And Blue

4. Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt

5. A

6. Gentlemen

7. Be Still Child

8. We Know Who Our Enemies Are

9. I Never Said That I Was Brave

10. B

11. Silencer

12. The Cure For Pain

Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)

1. Torches Together

2. January 1979

3. Tie Me Up! Untie Me!

4. Linear

5. Disaster Tourism

6. Seven Sisters

7. The Soviet

8. Paper Hanger

9. My Exit, Unfair

10. Four Word Letter (Part 2)

11. Carousels

12. Son Of A Widow

Brother, Sister (2006)

1. Messes Of Men

2. The Dryness Of Men

3. Wolf Am I! (And Shadow)

4. Yellow Spider

5. A Glass Can Only Spill What It Contains

6. Nice And Blue (Pt. II)

7. The Sun And The Moon

8. Orange Spider

9. C-Minor

10. In A Market Dimly Lit

11. O, Porcupine

12. Brownish Spider

13. In A Sweater Poorly Knit

It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright (2009)

1. Every Thought A Thought Of You

2. The Fox, The Crow And The Cookie

3. The Angel Of Death Came To David's Room

4. Goodbye, I!

5. A Stick, A Carrot & String

6. Bullet To Binary (Pt. 2)

7. Timothy Hay

8. Fig With A Bellyache

9. Cattail Down

10.The King Beetle On A Coconut Estate

11. Allah, Allah, Allah

Come As You Are: A 20th Anniversary Tribute To Nirvana's 'Nevermind' (2011)

2. In Bloom (Nirvana cover)

Ten Stories (2012)

1. February, 1878

2. Grist For The Malady Mill

3. East Enders Wives

4. Cardiff Giant

5. Elephant In The Dock

6. Aubergine

7. Fox's Dream Of The Log Flume

8. Nine Stories

9. Fiji Mermaid

10. Bear's Vision Of St. Agnes

11. All Circles

Pale Horses (2015)

1. Pale Horse

2. Watermelon Ascot

3. D-Minor

4. Mexican War Streets

5. Red Cow

6. Dorothy

7. Blue Hen

8. Lilac Queen

9. Magic Lantern Days

10. Birnam Wood

11. Rainbow Signs

[untitled] e.p. (2018)

1. Bethlehem, WV

2. Winter Solstice (alt. version)

3. Dirty Air

4. Cities of the Plain

5. Existential Dread, Six Hours' Time

6. August 6th

7. Kristy w/The Sparkling Teeth

[Untitled] (2018)

1. 9:27am, 7/29

2. Julia (or, 'Holy to the LORD' on the Bells of Horses)

3. Another Head for Hydra

4. [Dormouse Sighs]

5. Winter Solstice

6. Flee, Thou Matadors!

7. Tortoises All the Way Down

8. 2,459 Miles

9. Wendy & Betsy

10. New Wine, New Skins

11. Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore

12. Break on Through (To the Other Side) [Pt. 2]

Carissa's Wierd

This marks the 200th post here on Sophie's Floorboard, so thank you so much for all the support! I hope you've all found something to enjoy and continue to spread word about on here! Here's a band that I am so happy that gets requested so much, because they are easily one of my favourites.

It's winter. All that's in sight is the blurry white of the snow, and the dead branches reaching from the trees like limbs of other lost souls. In the distance, a shadowy cabin emerges, an isolated relic in this wasteland of ice and cold. Stepping inside, there isn't much more warmth, but the stillness does provide a sense of shelter from the torment outdoors. The layers of dust collected on old bookshelves and kitchen counters cover them like grey bed sheets. The floorboards moan and creak, like the sad whispers of Mat Brooke, both missing ones that were once there. The walls echo back with the voice of Jenn Ghetto, the ghostly accompaniment in harmonious tranquility and despair. From the dead winter of the forest, the drawn-out note of a violin, the soft plink of a piano key, the gentle tap of a drum, the intimate strum of a guitar slowly start to grow. And soon your head is in your hands, missing the only thing you've ever loved, now lost.

This is Carissa's Wierd, somber music for those questionably sober. Like the cabin in the woods, the band's history has been somewhat lost. Virtually no information is known about their time as an actual band, except that they were from Seattle, Washington, and existed from 1996-2003. Prior to the band, founding members Mat Brooke, Jenn Ghetto, and Ben Bridwell were all from Tucson, before moving to Olympia, Washington, and eventually ending up in Seattle. In 2010, they reunited to put out a retrospective album of "best of" material, as well as play a single reunion show. In 2011, the band played two reunion shows, as well as a put out a new EP, Tucson.

The first Carissa's Wierd album, Ugly But Honest, was put out on Bridwell's label Brown Records in 1999. It featured songs the band had been working on from 1996-1999, most of which are fairly stripped down and lo-fi in their sound. Featuring lots of reverb and distant vocals, as well as the distinctive melancholic guitar arpeggios, it is enough to drown the spirits in sorrow alone. Production value increased on their next release, You Should Be At Home Here in 2001, also on Brown Records. The songs become more expansive, with more length and exploration as the band become tighter as a group. This is an absolutely amazing with some stunning standout songs ("All Apologies And Smiles, Yours Truly, Ugly Valentine", The Color That Your Eyes Changed With The Color Of Your Hair", "Brooke Daniels' Tiny Broken Finger", "The Part About The Vine Thats Growing Through The Window And Reaching Towards My Bed"). The follow-up to this was their seminal album Songs About Leaving. This is easily one of my favourite albums ever, their most highly regarded, and overall the soundtrack to sadness. Each song is dripping with mourning and loss, and they weigh heavy on the listener, curled up in the fetal position. The production work is astounding, featuring the array of instrumentation seamlessly blending together, the harmonies are top-notch here, and the production work is an even bigger step up, since they worked with with Sad Robot Records (Bridwell temporarily shut down Brown Records). Unfortunately, this was also their swan song, since they broke up a little while after. The next release of theirs, Scrap Book, featured rare and unreleased songs from the band, some alternative versions of songs, and a handful covers by some very noteworthy names (The Smiths, Joy Division, John Frusciante, Leonard Cohen). 2004's I Before E featured three songs never released before (also some of their best), which were "Phantom Fireworks", "Die", and "Blue Champagne Glass". The remainder of the album is a live recording from their last show, which features songs from all three of their albums. For many years, the band was inactive. 2010 brought the compilation They'll Only Miss You When You Leave: Songs 1996-2003, which is a great introduction to them and contains some of their best work. They put it out on Hardly Art, a subsidiary label of Sub Pop. Their reunion in 2011 brought the two-track EP Tucson, which was newly recorded material.

Besides the beautiful music this band crafted that has too often gone overlooked, they are best known for their line-up of musicians who would go on to work on many notable projects. Their first drummer, who also joined them for their reunion shows, Robin Peringer, was a a touring guitarist with Modest Mouse for a while. Singer/guitarist Jenn Ghetto has been active with her solo project S both during and after Carissa's Wierd. I highly suggest checking out S, their sound is very similar to Carissa's Wierd. Singer/guitarist Mat Brooke has also been active in his own band, Grand Archives. Drummer Sera Cahoone has put out a few solo records with Sub Pop and collaborated with numerous musicians.The most notable project formed post-Carissa's Wierd was none other than the brilliant Band of Horses, who achieved a level of commercial success Carissa's Wierd never came close to. Band of Horses is the brainchild of Ben Bridwell, who was more or less a background figure in Carissa's Wierd, oddly enough. He began on drums and switched to bass in Carissa's Wierd, but took guitar, vocal, and songwriting duties on in Band Of Horses. On their first album, Everything All The Time, both Mat Brooke and Sera Cahoone are both members of the band, with Bridwell fronting them this time. Robin Peringer also worked with Band Of Horses on occasion later in their career.

So, please appreciate one of the most overlooked and underrated bands in indie rock history. This band means a lot to me, and I'm sure they do to a lot of people who they've reached with their music. Very few bands actually have the power to impact the lives of people, and Carissa's Wierd are definitely one of them. Their entire career was so consistent with awe-inspiring output (if recorded depression can be considered awe-inspiring). So I really encourage checking this band out, and if you head over to the Hardly Art website, you can get a really good deal on all their records, which I definitely suggest you look into. Enjoy.

Ugly But Honest: 1996-1999 (1999)

1. Heather Rhodes

2. Drunk w/The Only Saints I Know

3. Lazy Eyelids

4. To Be There Now

5. One Night Stand

6. Sitting In The Smoking Lounge Of An Airport With A Broken Heart

7. Blankets Stare

8. Fluorescent Lights

9. A Bathtile Green

10. Some Days Are Better Than Others

11. Alphabet On The Manhole

You Should Be At Home Here (2001)

1. Brooke Daniels' Tiny Broken Finger

2. The Color That Your Eyes Changed With The Color Of Your Hair

3. Halfway Spoken Heart That Feels Comfort In Everything Until It Disappears And Then Its Gone

4. A Loose Hair Falls Into A Glass Of Water Without Ice

5. Fear Not My Friend For Tonight We Ride

6. Blessed Arms That Hold You Tight, Freezing Cold And Alone

7. All Apologies And Smiles, Yours Truly, Ugly Valentine

8. The Ghost Of A Dead Hummingbird Flying Around The Room

9. The Part About The Vine Thats Growing Through The Window And Reaching Towards My Bed

10. You Should Be At Home Here

Songs About Leaving (2002)

1. You Should Be Hated Here

2. Silently Leaving the Room

3. So You Wanna Be A Superhero

4. September Come Take This Heart Away

5. Ignorant Piece Of Shit

6. The Piano Song

7. They'll Only Miss You When You Leave

8. A New Holiday (November 16th)

9. Farewell to All These Rotten Teeth

10. Sofisticated Fuck Princess Please Leave Me Alone

11. Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song For The Leaving Scene

12. (March 19th 1983) It Was Probably Green

Scrap Book (2003)

1. Sympathy Bush

2. Figure It Out

3. Sharin' A Hole

4. Unfaileable

5. Asleep (The Smiths cover)

6. Chelsea Hotel (Leonard Cohen cover)

7. Sympathy Bush Remix

8. Gauze (Red Red Meat cover)

9. Isolation (Joy Divison cover)

10. Curtains (John Frusciante cover)

11. Ugly Valentine

12. Heather Rhodes Remix

I Before E (2004)

1. Phantom Fireworks

2. Die

3. Blue Champagne Glass

4. Heather Rhodes

5. One Night Stand

6. Drunk With The Only Saints I Know

7. Brooke Daniels' Tiny Broken Finger

8. Bathtile Green

9. September

10. Ignorant

11. Blankets Stare

12. Fluorescent Light

They'll Only Miss You When You Leave: Songs 1996-2003 (2010)

1. Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song for the Leaving Scene

2. Die

3. The Color That Your Eyes Changed With the Color of Your Hair

4. One Night Stand

5. You Should Be Hated Here

6. Drunk With the Only Saints I Know

7. Phantom Fireworks

8. So You Wanna Be a Superhero

9. Brooke Daniels' Tiny Broken Fingers

10. Ignorant Piece of Shit

11. Blessed Arms That Hold You Tight, Freezing Cold and Alone

12. Blue Champagne Glass

13. September Come Take This Heart Away

14. All Apologies and Smiles, Yours Truely, Ugly Valentine

15. Sympathy Bush

16. They'll Only Miss You When You Leave

17. Sharin' a Hole (Bonus Track)

Tucson (2011)

1. Tucson

2. Meredith & Iris

Hardly Art

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Foxing

Foxing are a five-piece band that formed in 2011 from Saint Louis, Missouri. What's their genre? It's somewhere between a blend of emo/indie/post-rock/math rock/electronic music, as if that narrows anything down. Alright, think of a band influenced by the likes of Explosions In The Sky, This Town Needs Guns, Listener, The Antlers, Tera Melos, Maps & Atlases, Death Cab For Cutie, Brand New, and A Silver Mt. Zion (and their 1000 names). Now imagine that said band came from the same music scene that spawned The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate), Crash of Rhinos, and Prawn. And what do you have? Foxing.

This band utilizes a range of instruments in addition to the basic guitar, bass, drums setup. A trumpet is prominently used, as well as various string arrangements, and electronic tinkering, among others. Their guitars are very clean, often laden with delay and reverb. The drums focus more on forming rhythms than keeping basic beats. The vocals are varied, often ranging from spoken word parts to cracking shouts and sputters of intense emotion ("Why don't you love me back?"). The lyrical relatability and poeticism is painstaking, to say the least. The band crafts songs featuring endless crescendos, cathartic climaxes, and eventual breaking points, the formula of post-rock, but structure their songs to remain unpredictable and adventurous, which sets them apart from the predictably that plagues the genre. The Albatross in particular is an amazing piece of work that I highly, highly recommend everybody check out in its entirety. It has got to be one of the most solid albums put out in this realm of music in years, in my opinion.

Foxing released their debut full-length on Count Your Lucky Stars, and were quite quickly signed to Triple Crown Records, for good reason. Below is the aforementioned full-length and their earlier material. Be sure to support the band, and they are a must-see live band if you have the chance. Enjoy.

Old Songs (2012)

1. Friendly Homes

2. Sunspotting

3. Gold Cobra

Foxing/Send Away Stranger (2013)

1. Foxing - Ocelot

2. Send Away Stranger - Still Figures 

3. Send Away Stranger - You Look Like a Basketball Pro

Japenese Breakfast/Foxing (2013)

1. Japanese Breakfast - The Woman That Loves You

2. Foxing - Tom Bley

The Albatross (2013)

1. Bloodhound

2. Inuit

3. The Medic

4. Pent up in a Blind

5. Rory

6. Bit By a Dead Bee pt. I

7. Bit By a Dead Bee pt. II

8. Den Mother

9. Calm Before

10. Quietus

Dealer (2015)

1. Weave

2. The Magdalene

3. Night Channels

4. Laundered

5. Indica

6. Winding Cloth

7. Redwoods

8. Glass Coughs

9. Eiffel

10. Coda

11. Three On A Match

Two (2017)

1. Indica Two

2. Redwoods Two

Nearer My God (2018)

1. Grand Paradise

2. Slapstick

3. Lich Prince

4. Gameshark

5. Nearer My God

6. Five Cups

7. Heartbeats

8. Trapped In Dillard's

9. Bastardizer

10. Crown Candy

11. Won't Drown

12. Lambert

Draw Down The Moon (2021)

1. 737

2. Go Down Together

3. Beacons

4. Draw Down The Moon

5. Where The Lightning Strikes Twice

6. Bialystok

7. At Least We Found The Floor

8. Cold Blooded

9. If I Believed In Love

10. Speak With The Dead (feat. Why?)

The Albatross: Ten Years (2023)

1. Carly Cosgrove - Bloodhound

2. Insignificant Other - Inuit

3. Sweet Pill - The Medic

4. Prince Daddy & The Hyena - Rory

5. Home Is Where - Bit By A Dead Bee, Pt. I

6. Hey, ILY! - Bit By A Dead Bee, Pt. II

7. For Your Health - Den Mother

8. Colleen Dow - Quietus

9. The Medic (2023)

10. Rory (2023)

Foxing (2024)

1. Secret History

2. Hell 99

3. Spit

4. Greyhound

5. Cleaning

6. Barking

7. Kentucky McDonald's

8. Looks Like Nothing

9. Gratitutde

10. Dead Cat

11. Dead Internet

12. Hall Of Frozen Heads

13. Cry Baby

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Tiny Moving Parts

Tiny Moving Parts are a three-piece emo/screamo band from Moorhead, Minnesota which formed in 2008 when they were still in high school. The band consists of two brothers (bass/vocals and drums) and their cousin (guitar/vocals), I call that a fam jam (#cringeworthylilwaynejokes). Anyway, these guys blow me away. For a three-piece, their sound is so tight, and they have masterfully established themselves as one of the front runners in the modern emo/screamo scene, along with great bands such as Old Gray, Native, Grown Ups, and the Merchant Ships-related bands. The trade-off vocal parts, the bright and twinkly guitars, as well as the math rock-level technical bits of the bass and drums are some of the distinctive characteristics that comprise Tiny Moving Parts' sound. They are one of those bands that make you want to sing along and cry along to at the same time, you know? Basically one of the best kind of bands. The vocals can be super catchy, but with some emotionally hard-hitting lyrics relating to topics such as nostalgia. They just got signed to Triple Crown, and for a fucking good reason. Check out all of this stuff below, though the early things are from when they were in high school, so the quality of recording and such is questionable, but the later stuff is absolutely killer, both for the music and production value. Enjoy.

Waves Rise, Waves Recede, The Ocean Is Full Of Waves (2008)

1. The Poem

2. De La Exsorta

3. Me Vs. The Eohippus

4. The Mountain That Climbed Itself

5. Sfumato

6. The Accents From The Backwinds

7. The Sea That Drowned Itself

8. Searching For The Orang Pendek, With Biotite Eyes

9. Moving To Antarctica

sfumato ('08) (2008)

1. sfumato ('08)

Moving To Antarctica (2010)

1. For the Sake of Brevity

2. I Remember My First Bear P.1

3. I Remember My First Bear P.2

4. Weather Too Unbearable For Bear To Bare

5. You Have No Idea How High I Can Fly

6. I Don't Care, Larry Bird?

7. We Don't Cross Fingers

8. I'll Sum This Up

Birdhouse Sessions (2011)

1. We Don't Cross Fingers... LIVE

2. I'll Sum This Up LIVE

De La Exsorta (Single) (2011)

1. De La Exsorta

The Dan Martin Split (2011)

1. I'd Rather Soar With The Thought Of Birds Carrying Us Away

2. I'm Still Here, You're Still There

Old Maid/Coffee With Tom (2012)

1. Old Maid

2. Coffee With Tom

This Couch is Long & Full Of Friendship (2013)

1. Dakota

2. Along the Lakeside

3. Grayscale

4. Vacation Bible School

5. Clouds Above My Head

6. I

7. Waterbed

8. Amateur Night

9. II

10. John P.

Old Gray/Tiny Moving Parts (2014)

1. Old Gray - Clip Your Own Wings

2. Old Gray - An Epitaph

3. Tiny Moving Parts - Swimming Lessons

4. Tiny Moving Parts - Fair Trade

Pleasant Living (2014)

1. Sundress

2. Always Focused

3. Fourth Of July

4. I Hope Things Go The Way I Hope

5. Whiskey Waters

6. Movies

7. The Better Days

8. Boxcar

9. Spring Fever

10. Entrances & Exits

11. Skinny Veins

12. Van Beers

Celebrate (2016)

1. Good Enough

2. Happy Birthday

3. Birdhouse

4. Headache

5. Common Cold

6. Stay Warm

7. Breathe Deep

8. Volumes

9. Minnesota

10. Minnow

Swell (2018)

1. Applause

2. Smooth It Out

3. Feel Alive

4. Caution

5. Wildfire

6. Whale Watching

7. It's Too Cold Tonight

8. Malfunction

9. Wishbone

10. Warm Hand Splash

breathe (2019)

1. The Midwest Sky

2. Light Bulb

3. Medicine

4. Icicles (Morning Glow)

5. Vertabrae

6. Polar Bear

7. Bloody Nose

8. Soft Spot

9. I Can't Shake

10. Hallmark

Tiny Moving Parts (2022)

1. Decibel

2. North Shore

3. Demons Are Taking Over

4. Tangled Up

5. Jotting Notes

6. Downhill Spiral

7. All My Guts

8. Day Drunk

9. Bad Trip

10. 12345

Deep In The Blue (2024)

1. Before I Go

2. Deep In The Blue

3. Dizzy

4. Listen To Your Favorite Songs

5. Time Frame

6. I'll Be There

7. Paul Bunyan's Theme Song

8. The Cure (But Not Really)

9. Breeze In July

10. Waterbed Pt. 2

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