Sometimes I don't have much to say in one of these posts, though in this case it's not necessarily for lack of insight so much as the fact I just don't know much about this band. Stimulis existed between 2002 and 2005. Their Myspace page says they were from Charlotte, NC, but I think that isn't correct. Last.FM claims Lehigh Valley, PA, and is backed up by this article, so the stuff on Myspace could either not be from them at all, or some of it is and some of it isn't (when Myspace moved over to the modern version of the site, old pages were often combined). The EP I hav ..read more

 Sometimes I don't have much to say in one of these posts, though in this case it's not necessarily for lack of insight so much as the fact I just don't know anything about this band. Stimulus existed between 2002 and 2004. They may have been from Charlotte, NC, assuming the Myspace page isn't for a different band entirely. This EP was recorded in Delaware, which may be indicative of nothing. They had a demo CD, though it's unclear if the No Such Thing As Perfect EP is that demo or a separate release. They may have had a self-titled release after the EP but, again, this could b ..read more

 The Ivory Coast were a band from Boston, active from 1998 to July of 2003. Like their fellow Bostonians in The Shyness Clinic and (originally) Jejune, they combined the sounds of indie rock with midwest emo and emo pop. Their early discography has a great deal of emo in its makeup, but The Ivory Coast were around just long enough to make the jump to a bigger label in Polyvinyl, and their style shifted in accordance, letting the indie rock mostly take things over. In 1999 the band put out a demo or promo called Japanada. Last.FM claims the band's subsequent first album was finished in 19 ..read more

 Recess Theory were a band from Florida, active for a couple years in the late 90s, with their first release coming in 1998 and their last in '99. They made it into the new millennium in a sense, changing their name to Legends of Rodeo and leaving the emo genre behind thereafter. I don't have much more information than that about them, as there are no working archives of their websites. Their sound was midwest emo combined with emo pop, similar to what Braid was doing at the same time, though I would say Recess Theory leaned heavier on the midwest emo side of things than Braid ever d ..read more

January Star were a band from Ibbenbüren, active from the late 90s to the early aughts. While always dedicated to emo, they changed their sound slightly with each release, morphing between genres gradually. They began life as a melodic hardcore\pop punk act, their first, self-titled EP in 1997 being a rough-edged slice of pop punk. By 1998 they had transitioned to midwest emo, the Pneumatic 7" sounding a lot like a more midwest emo-focused Four Minute Mile-era Get Up Kids. Perhaps logically, their next progression took them in the direction of Jimmy Eat World's seminal Clarity ..read more

Otherwise originally formed in Rutland, UK, relocating to London following their first album and were active from May of 1999 to June of 2003. The band's musical output can be neatly divided into pre- and post-millennial styles. In 1999,  Otherwise offered pop punk with skate punk leanings. In 2001 with the release of the September's Gone EP, they became an emo pop band. A compilation track from 2000 hints at this forthcoming change, sitting neatly in that musical divide. After that, though, the band embraced emo until they called it quits. Combining emo pop with strong influences fr ..read more

 Three Summers Gone were a band who formed in South Carolina but ended up being based in San Francisco. They came together after the breakup of a band called Blue In The Face, a project I can't find any additional information on. They were active from 1998 to at least 2001 and possibly some time after that, though 2001 saw their first and only album release. The band shared members with Box The  Compass, Under A Dying Sun, and With Eyes Like Static. Based on the opening notes of Three Summers Gone's sole album, 2001's Time Well Spent, you would reasonably expect a late-90s style f ..read more

 Embrace Fire were a band from the Netherlands, active from 2004 to what appears to be somewhere around 2008, though they may have kept playing live past that point; they released two compilation tracks that year, and their website went offline at the end of it. The band included members from Raise Kain and springrain. Musically, Embrace Fire had more in common with bands like Life at These Speeds or Your Halo Is A Radar than their previous work, combining angular emo\post-hardcore with post-punk. The band's own press release describes the result as a combination of " Bloc Party, Ex ..read more

In terms of representation, this blog tends to bias towards bands from the US. There's a few reasons for that. For one, the US is both a very large country and the birthplace of emo, and therefore the majority of emo bands are from America. Another reason is that bands from the US are simply more visible from within the country, on the internet and otherwise. It's very difficult for me to find bands from local scenes in other countries, especially non-English speaking countries. With the advent of Bandcamp and other online platforms, this is not so much the case anymore, but I know that there ..read more

  The Oliver Twist (later to be known as The Oliver Twist Band and then Eine Oliver Twist Kooperation) were a band from Cologne, Germany, active from 1999 until 2006. Their changes in name reflected a steady changing of their sound over each album release, starting in emo before moving into post-punk\dance-punk and finally ending at electropunk, moving them beyond the jurisdiction of this blog. But I've assembled their first three albums, all of which include emo to a varying degree. Their first album, 1999's sweet, sweet and coffee talk, is pure 90s midwest emo pop, sitting som ..read more