Best "Emo" Disc 50 - Part 5 - Further Seems Forever, Thursday, Burning Airlines, The Used [ROCKIN'ON (April 2007)]
『THE MOON IS DOWN』 FURTHER SEEMS FOREVER 【March 2001】 The first album by Further Seems Forever, whose sound even hints at the fact that ‘after the break-up of Florida's legendary Christian hardcore band Strongarm, four of its members formed the band with current Dashboard Confessional vocalist Chris Carrabba as the band's lead singer’. Unlike the Strongarm era, when the basic structure of drums/bass was hardcore itself, they built an even thicker wall of sound and fortified themselves with it, this work conveys an airy mode of breaking down all walls with their own hands and wishing to connect to any genre. The title track of this album and “Snowbirds And Townies” feature chord work that brings to life heartbreaking sadness, and Chris' vocals, which take you beyond the world of pop rather than the heavy dark world, easily clear the “prescribed performance” of emo while at the same time presenting an unshakable “golden rule.” The band's dignified sound was needed at a time when emo was in turmoil, but after repeated member changes, they disbanded in January last year. What a shame. (Tomoki Takahashi)
『FULL COLLAPSE』 THURSDAY 【April 2001】 Thursday is a band that emerged early on in the New York & New Jersey scene. They have released four albums to date, but I think this second one is still their masterpiece. Vocalist Jeff Rickley raised his fist with his painfully thin (now he's finally grown into a visible physique) body, and always embodied the sorrow, haste, and impulse that the band portrays in their albums. However, for example, “Understanding in a Car Crash” was written based on a friend's accident, but the melody line swings so naively that it is often compared to the Cure, and the sound is also more refined than other bands whose sound tends to be monotonous and hard-edged. This was their originality, and it also seemed to make the band's spirit freer. They have evolved the format of hardcore punk itself by expressing the complex and fragile emotions of facing death, loss, and despair, and still having to move forward despite the feelings of helplessness. (Akemi Nakamura)
『IDENTIKIT』 BURNING AIRLINES 【May 2001】 Regarding their sound, Yoshiyuki Suzuki once left a very intriguing quote, which I will use with a slight modification because there is nothing better than that. In other words, it is as if the spirit of Fugazi and the pop sensibility of XTC were fused together by a demon. Can the essence of both really be compatible? But you'll know it when you hear it. Their music is full of surprises, yet catchy, unrestrained, and at the same time has a neat beauty similar to a mathematical formula, with reason and instinct, intellect and impulse are two sides of the same coin, and it is filled with thrills and excitement that will make your spine tingle. The band was formed in 1998 around J. Robbins, the leader of Jawbox. This is their second album, released in 2001, but their first album, with its slightly brighter melody, was also excellent. Unfortunately, these are the only two albums they have released. After the band broke up, J formed the Channels with his wife. They released an EP on Desoto and the first album on their ally [label] Dischord, but shortly afterwards their child was diagnosed with a serious illness and the band was forced to stop. For more information, please visit the Desoto Records website. (Tomoko Nakagome)
『THE USED』 THE USED 【June 2002】 The Used are headliners again for this year's 'Taste of Chaos Tour', currently taking place in the USA. Six years after their debut, they are still making an impact on the post-hardcore scene, especially as the originators of screamo.
Formed in Orem, Utah, in the mid-90s, they were kicked out of their home for not following the Mormon teachings, had no money to buy drumsticks even if they wanted to record, were kicked out for being too loud to play live, and became addicted to drugs…… This is the story of how they had to escape from the cage of Orem in order to survive, and it is actually a boring and common story that is repeated countless times in rural America. However, they produced this debut album even though they had not yet performed live 20 times. Passion ignited by the friction and discord of oppression. This deformed, twisted sound, but with a solitary beauty, more than anything else tells us why such an ordinary story did not have an ordinary ending.
For example, what was interesting about watching the Warped Tour around 2002 was that the bands stimulated each other, and at an incredible speed, they took in new inspiration and developed and expanded in order to give their own bands their own characteristics. It was similar to the hip-hop scene, and I think it was also important that it was born as an extension of the mainstream mixture, but discovering new sounds was the driving force of this scene. I think that's why the scene had the stamina to survive in the mainstream, from metal to disco.
This album was also an album that took the scene one step further with such a discovery. From “Maybe Memories,” with its metal guitars, dry drums, and screams that seem to say, "Let me out of here," to the pop singalong number “The Taste of Ink.” This song is about living every day as if you were dead thinking, ‘today might be the end’, but believing that you know ‘that day’ will come. If there is a theme running through the whole album, this might be it. Hopes and fears that this might be their first and last chance. The days when we believed that even if we were at rock bottom, we could always get out. The pain of being trapped in a cage of boredom, trapped and unable to escape, sometimes in heavy guitar sounds, sometimes in screams, sometimes in the pain of distortion and high tension, as in one of their best-known songs, “A Box Full of Sharp Objects”. Bert McCracken's vocal style changes rapidly, and the lyrics scream that today is the time to shine, more than yesterday. Then there is the falsetto voice on “Blue and Yellow” and the acoustic guitar and strings in “On My Own” are also beautiful. The boring everyday life in their eyes. The desire to convey these emotions in a realistic way by any means possible broke the rules and was beautifully sublimated in this album. In 2004, they released their second album, “In Love and Death”. (Akemi Nakamura)
Translator's Note: I think in terms of history, to say that without the existence of Warped Tour, there wouldn't be a catalyst responsible for the second generation of the "emo" movement is an understatement. Somewhat ironically and unsurprisingly, The Used hated being called an "emo" or "screamo" band, and it was only until 2017 that Bert McCracken finally accepted that their band was emo after all.
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