As we stated in our listing of the 50 finest albums of 2023, it wasn’t straightforward to slim this yr’s many, many great albums right down to 50, so we thought it’d be a good suggestion to shine a light-weight on another releases that we expect deserve extra love. Specifically, right here’s an inventory of 10 great emo albums from 2023 that you may (or may not) have missed. Emo’s “fifth wave” — because it’s been referred to as — is in full swing, and the style’s present technology could be very musically numerous. Whether you like noodly Midwest-style emo, catchy emo-pop, or artsy, indie rock-leaning emo, we expect you’ll discover one thing to love right here. The listing is heavy on emo’s newest technology, however there are some longer-running lifer bands in there, too.
Read extra: 11 alt icons of TV and movie that formed a technology of emos
Here’s the listing, introduced alphabetically.
awakebutstillinbed – chaos takes the wheel and i’m a passenger (Tiny Engines)
The long-awaited follow-up to awakebutstillinbed‘s 2018 LP, what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you, finally arrived this year, and it was well worth the wait. Shannon Taylor has one of those once-in-a-generation voices; she can go from a whisper to a scream at the drop of a hat, and she brings such intense passion and emotion to these songs that it’s not possible to hear and never really feel one thing. The album is uncooked and intimate, a real replication of what it sounds wish to see this band play reside, and the preparations are exceptional. Multiple songs hover across the six/seven/eight-minute mark with angular passages that may make late-period Fugazi proud, and the result’s actually mesmerizing.
Equipment – Alt. Account (Klepto Phase)
With Alt. Account, Ohio’s Equipment have crafted some of the endearing emo albums of the yr. Singer/guitarist Nick Zander gives up witty observations on all the things from courting a extra historically profitable companion to web shit-talk all through a set of songs that ranges from slowcore to math rock to Weezer worship. In traditional DIY emo trend, it’s uncooked and scrappy but bursting with ambition, hyper private but extensively relatable.
(*10*)
Fireworks – Higher Lonely Power (Funeral Plant Collective)
Fireworks want no introduction, however you “may have missed” this album just because it got here out on New Year’s Day and the band did little or no press and touring behind it. It’s their first full-length in eight years, after the band seemingly went on hiatus in 2015 however truly simply retreated from the general public eye and began secretly engaged on this report. It’s nothing like their early pop-punk days; as an alternative, it’s an art-rock masterwork that brings to thoughts albums like Radiohead’s Kid A, Sufjan Stevens’ The Age of Adz, and Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, injected with the power of a band who spent a full decade within the punk world. (For a “more emo” comparability, it’s additionally much like Foxing’s Nearer My God.) Lurching rhythms and eerie sounds are set towards lyrical topics, like Christian trauma and mortality. For those that love when the emo/pop-punk band take a giant creative swing, you can’t miss out on Higher Lonely Power.
Home Is Where – the whaler (Wax Bodega)
If you went to, or have been no less than enthusiastic about, Foxing and the Hotelier’s The Albatross/Home, Like Noplace Is There tenth anniversary tour this yr, then the brand new band you want in your life is Home Is Where. In addition to contributing a canopy of “Bit By A Dead Bee Pt. 1” to Foxing’s Albatross covers album, Home Is Where launched the whaler, which appears like a worthy and non secular successor to these breakthrough Foxing and Hotelier albums from a decade in the past. The band owe as a lot (or extra) to Neutral Milk Hotel as they do to emo and screamo, and so they mix their distinctive musical perspective with subject material that feels made for these occasions. They name it a “concept record about getting used to things getting worse,” and rattling if that isn’t what life in 2023 appears like.
Kerosene Heights – Southeast of Somewhere (No Sleep)
If you miss the times of late 2000s/early 2010s emo revival, you want Kerosene Heights‘ Southeast of Somewhere in your life. Not only did it come out on a label that released a lot of that stuff back then (No Sleep), but it also perfectly taps into the math-rock noodling, strained scream-singing, and pop-punky hooks that make this subset of emo such a thrill. They’re reaching for the notes they will’t fairly hit, they’re tearing by way of the noisy lo-fi exterior, and so they’re giving off that intangible feeling that the perfect emo at all times does.
Magazine Beach – Constant Springtime (Take This To Heart)
What type of emo do you want? Fast-paced melodic hardcore? Noodly Midwest-style stuff? Emo with massive gang vocal singalongs? Somber folky emo? Stuff that leans somewhat bit extra indie pop? If you answered sure to the entire above, that is the album for you. Magazine Beach‘s debut LP, Constant Springtime, does all of that, and the band deliver these separate items collectively for one thing a lot larger than the sum of its elements.
Origami Angel – The Brightest Days (Counter Intuitive)
Origami Angel have turn into pioneers and leaders of emo’s new bizarre technology, and it’s as a result of no thought is just too loopy for them. Should their 2021 sophomore LP be a wide-ranging double album that acts as fifth-wave emo’s reply to the Beatles’ White Album? Yeah. Should they put out two EPs in 2022, one being hardcore and one other being jangle pop? Sure, why not? This yr, they dropped The Brightest Days, which they name a “mixtape” due to how stylistically everywhere it’s. It bounces between Midwest emo, bossa nova, ska, indie pop, metalcore, Beach Boys homages, and extra, with lyrics that vary from lighthearted jabs at New Jersey to political protest music, and Gami make all of it work.
saturdays at your home – always cloudy EP (No Sleep)
With only a six-song EP, Kalamazoo, Michigan’s saturdays at your home left a giant mark this yr. These songs vary from the youthful quirk of Modern Baseball to the 1975’s sharp dance-rock to Algernon Cadwallader-worthy guitars to the heavy, grungy bliss of Balance and Composure, and SAYP do all of it so properly and make all of it their very own. This is a type of EPs that feels simply as main as an album, and it makes us very excited to listen to what comes out of their subsequent full-length.
Spanish Love Songs – No Joy (Pure Noise)
Spanish Love Songs celebrated 10 years as a band in 2023, and so they additionally launched their finest album but. They hail from LA, however their fusion of heartland rock, pop punk, and emo seems like an especially Philly combo of the War On Drugs, the Wonder Years, and the Menzingers. In his shaky, emotive voice, Dylan Slocum sings about dying, despair, and making it by way of, with extremely private moments that culminate in hooks that beg to be sung alongside to.
Teenage Halloween – Till You Return (Don Giovanni)
Teenage Halloween made this album with producer (and Hop Along/Algernon Cadwallader guitarist) Joe Reinhart, who’s labored on classics like Joyce Manor’s Never Hungover Again and Modern Baseball’s Holy Ghost, and if you like these information, you’ll most likely like this one too. Similar to these bands, it throws punk, indie rock, and emo in a blender and turns them into explosive singalongs. Luk Henderiks is a magnetic singer, yeller, and lyricist, and Till You Return finds bassist Tricia Marshall bringing extra of her great indie pop-punk gems to the desk, too.
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