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

Idle Mind were a band active in the mid-90s and probably from Colorado, as their label, Sh-Mow records, was based in Boulder. Sh-Mow Records is best known for releasing the Shmowballs compilation, which includes a couple bangers from Christie Front Drive and Small Dog Frenzy. The compilation was for local Colorado artists, and Idle Mind's inclusion is further evidence they were from somewhere in the state. The only contact information in the liner notes is for the label and, unsurprisingly for the mid-90s, the band had no website. The band's name also makes them extremely difficult to se ..read more

 Time To Fly were a band from Port Orchard, Washington, formed in 2001. Wikipedia says the band was active until 2005, but their website went offline in 2004, so that may not be correct. They are best known for their contributions to that holy grail of aughts emo pop, the Amped snowboarding series of games; more than half of the band's debut album was included in Xbox 360 launch title Amped 3 (fellow Pacific Northwest natives Woke Up Falling also contributed). The Amped series included such emo luminaries as Time Spent Driving, Sunday's Best, The Jazz June, and The Get Up Kids, but ..read more

 Farewell To Youth were an emo pop band active in the mid-aughts, almost certainly from California and possibly from Santa Cruz in particular, which is where their label, Lorelei Records, was based. The band's vocalist was also in Audiocrush on the same label, so it's reasonable to assume they were from the same area. It doesn't look like the band ever had a website and it was likely a short-lived project, so information on them is sparse. While Farewell To Youth has some things in common with Audiocrush, their sound was more emo pop than post-hardcore, with a little less influence f ..read more