Last weekend, I found myself in a familiar place: aimlessly bouncing around YouTube, wondering what rabbit hole I'd be headed down for the evening. Luckily, Friday brought a great surprise, and guided my viewing for the evening. Scranton, PA's premier emo outfit Tigers Jaw were celebrating the release of their new album I Won't Care How You Remember Me with a free live stream of the band playing through the entire record. Shot by their friends and family and edited by the band's own singer/keyboardist/songwriter Brianna Collins, the stream also featured a "digital merch table," featuring items exclusive to that night (including a "tour press" vinyl variant that I was able to pick up). It was a very immersive experience, and showed the band's keen attention to detail in rolling out their latest release.
When considering the care that went into making the album's premiere, it's most notable that the band had been waiting a long, long time for this. After all, the band's career-best album spin was released all the way back in 2017. That's a four-year gap, which far less common than the every-two-years pattern we've seen develop over the last decade. The reasons for the gap aren't clear, but I'm venturing to guess it had to do with a combination of spin's success keeping the band on tour for a more extensive period of time, two phenomenal singles released in "Eyes Shut" and "Warn Me," and the catch-all of Covid-19 putting everything in a holding pattern. In a few interviews they've given promoting the album, it's been revealed that the band had written and recorded the bulk of the album in 2019 with the intention of releasing in 2020. They aren't the first band to deal with this, and they surely won't be the last (more on that later).
Whatever the reasons were, 4 years between new albums is a long time. I especially despised this wait, as spin has become one of my favorite albums to come out over the last five years, so I spent a lot of time thinking about what this gap means for the band. To put things into perspective for myself, I took a look back at some other bands that took their time for a myriad of reasons, and ended up having a gap similar to the one Tigers Jaw just ended. Is there some sort of connective tissue that these band all have in common? Let's take a look at emo's archives and find out.
The Band: Thrice The Album: To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere The Gap: 5 years after their last full-length, Major/Minor The Story: This one has a pretty easy explanation, as the gap signifies Thrice's indefinite hiatus after over a decade of pushing the creative limits of emo and post-hardcore. Sparked mostly by Dustin Kensrue's association and falling out with the Mars Hill church, the band's hiatus and return caused the band's talents to age like wine, as To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere quickly became one of the band's most successful and best efforts to date. Thrice have been plugging along every since, releasing Palms in 2018 and spending the early part of 2020 touring in honor of the 15-year anniversary of their genre-defining album Vheissu.
The Band: The Dangerous Summer The Album: The Dangerous Summer
The Gap: 5 years after their last full-length, Golden Record
The Story: Whether it was the in-fighting, the fact that they were never fully appreciated the first time around, or the slight disappointment of Golden Record, 2014 finally saw the tumultuous career of The Dangerous Summer come to an end. However, thanks to the intervention of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (you read that right), songwriter AJ Perdomo got his project back on track without certain former bandmates a few years ago, and it's been full steam ahead ever since. Armed with the band's trademark emotional delivery, paired with Perdomo's consistent heart-on-sleeve lyricism, the band's self-titled album provided a bold statement of the band's return, which has since been complemented by another full-length (Mother Nature) and EP (last year's All That is Left of the Blue Sky). The band released said EP on their own label, Molly Water Music, another assertion that we'll be getting The Dangerous Summer music for a long time to come.
The Band: Underoath The Album: Erase Me
The Gap: 8 years after their last full-length, Disambiguation; 10 years after their last album with Aaron Gillespie, Lost in the Sound of Separation
The Story: To be filed under Reunions I Never Saw Coming, Underoath stormed back into the fold by announcing they'd be touring behind their two most successful albums, (They're Only Chasing Safety) and Define the Great Line. If that was all their reunion brought to existence, that would have been enough. However, the band started popping up on festivals around the country, and even took a spot supporting Bring Me the Horizon (keep that in mind) afterwards. As the band pointed out in interviews afterwards, that should have been a sign that the band were planning on releasing new music. As Erase Me was announced, the band ushered in a new era for their sound, with Spencer Chamberlain taking over most of the vocal duties, even despite Aaron Gillespie's renewed presence in the band. While Erase Me may be the most structured songs of the band's career (it also scored the band its first radio play), it also continued the band's tradition of expanding and perfecting their craft with each release. The band have begun teasing new music, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed we're able to get some this year.
The Band: Bring Me the Horizon The Album: amo
The Gap: 4 years after their last full-length, That's the Spirit
The Story: It's difficult to blame BMTH for the gap here; That's the Spirit took them from drawing the biggest crowds at Warped Tour to selling out the biggest ballrooms and amphitheaters in the country, and they were only getting started. If you're not aware of just how big this got, I encourage you to search Youtube from one of the many festival sets that the band played to staggeringly large crowds. There was simply too much momentum that had been building since Sempiternal, and too many lucrative tours and festivals to take for the band to stop to record. I mean, did you read what I said in the Underoath blurb? Bring Me the Horizon got UNDEROATH to open for them. They're one of maybe and handful of bands that could have done that. To its credit, amo only added to the band's growing legacy, as they gained a few more haters for radio-ready singles like "Mother Tongue" and "Medicine," not to mention the features submitted by Grimes and Rahzel as well. The band just put out an 8-song EP last year, and seem to be planning to release more music this year, which will only help to grow their already rabid fan base.
The Band: Paramore The Album: Take your pick between Paramore or After Laughter
The Gap: both albums were released 4 years after the album that preceded it
The Story: Notice a pattern here? Paramore have now taken at least 4 years between their last two albums, and their next one will have at least as long of a wait. We'll take a look at their next release in a bit, but let's focus on the self-titled and After Laughter, two albums whose releases had similar storylines around them. Each album saw Paramore's official roster shifting drastically, and also thrust the band to an even higher level. Where the self-titled album was powered by colossal singles like "Ain't it Fun" and "Still Into You," After Laughter is the band's most creative, cohesive work to date. We've had another delay as the band has continued to trek the world, and has also been put on hold for Hayley Williams's solo material (and hopefully a tour when this pandemic mess is over), but if the last two Paramore albums have proven anything, it's that the wait for new music is always well worth it.
The Band: Saosin The Album: Along the Shadow
The Gap: 7 years after their last full-length, In Search of Solid Ground
The Story: Before I say anything else, how fitting is it that Saosin's reunion album, featuring original vocalist Anthony Green, was released seven years after their last full-length? This stuff writes itself sometimes. This album was right up there with Underoath in terms of the surprise attached to it, as Saosin had reunited and played a few small dates around New Jersey's Skate and Surf Festival in 2014. The album came two years later, while Green's main gig Circa Survive was in between album cycles, and fans were rewarded with a full-length that was promised when this group got together for the Translating the Name EP, We haven't gotten any new material since, but seeing videos of Anthony Green singing on "Voices" has been a welcomed treat.
The Band: Chiodos The Album: Devil
The Gap: 4 years after their last full-length, Illuminaudio
The Story: Just because you probably saw this coming doesn't make it any less special. When Craig Owens's emo supergroup Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows (who, incidentally, are likely releasing new music this year) dissolved and Chiodos's run with Brandan Bolmer brought their momentum to a halt (even though Illuminaudio was pretty good), there was reconciliation in the air as no one was ready to let go of the dream. The result was Devil, which also added the flair of Thomas Erak (of The Fall Of Troy fame) joining on lead guitar. Devil is an album that can be affectionately described as "all over the place," but it wasn't enough to keep things rolling in the right direction, and we've likely seen the last of Chiodos. Still, getting to see them put this album out and perform "There's No Penguins in Alaska" again will be held close to my emo heart forever.
The Band: Fall Out Boy The Album: Save Rock and Roll
The Gap: 4 years after their last full-length, Folie a Deux
The Story: There's surprising reunions, and then there's Fall Out Boy's reunion. After near radio silence for years after their announced hiatus, the band announced their return the day after the Super Bowl in 2013 with a new song, new arena tour, new music video, and a newfound energy for their music. Save Rock and Roll is likely to go down as the last great Fall Out Boy record, and the hysteria it created with each single, music video, and collaboration (8 years later, and I'm still not over the Elton John feature) only further cementing Fall Out Boy's legacy as one of the most iconic emo bands of all time. I'll always remember where I was when I found out Fall Out Boy was reuniting.
I mentioned I'd try to find a connective thread between these bands, and this is what I've come up with: all of these bands are really, really good. That's a really obvious thing to say, but think about it: with that long between albums, there needs to be a certain level of demand for the band that keeps them coming back to release music and tour in promotion of it. Each of these bands have been to the peaks of their respective scenes, and some ascended even further up the ladder. When you have immense talent that translates into a sizable fan base, there's a little more wiggle room that you can work with in between recording sessions.
Having said that, we're seeing an unprecedented amount of bands whose releases have been delayed to Covid-19, a fate that we've already seen Tigers Jaw have to navigate. In 2019, Circa Survive were onstage saying that they'd be releasing new music soon, and we've yet to hear any of it. Same goes for Every Time I Die, who have been riding the wave of Low Teens longer than their usual patterns, and have now just begun to tease their next album. We're likely to see a few more bands come out and mention that the pandemic, lockdown, and vaccine rollout affected their release schedule, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel there, and hopefully none of these bands make us wait as long as they have before.
From the Archives will be a series within Collections that takes examples for a specific theme, and expands on the idea that connects those bands, artists, songs, and/or albums. Stay tuned for more.
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