Black Pine - I Hope the Leaves Change Soon for You
A- Tier
Black Pine is a newer Screamo / Emocore band from New York and their latest album is one for the books! They use Emocore as the basis of their music while injecting harrowing Screamo elements into the mix. Scattered Midwest Emo twinkles dust the wasteland while sections of noise act as interludes. I Hope the Leaves Change is one of the most refreshing releases this year, doing so by looking to the past raw and cathartic Emo of yore for inspiration.
hanoi traffic - towards an end
B+ Tier
towards an end is hanoi traffic’s second EP and damn do they bring the heat! Relentless and unbelievably heavy, towards an end has tons of subtle technicality if your ears can cut through the cacophony; it helps when Will Killingsworth himself is your mastering engineer. I’m looking forward to seeing where this band takes their sound in the future, but I can already really appreciate what they’re doing.
Blind Girls - An Exit Exists
B+ Tier
Blind Girls is perhaps the best Emoviolence act going right now, and certainly so for the Southern Hemisphere. An Exit Exists further canonizes the band as such with one of the darkest and most ferocious albums of the entire year. Anguish-soaked shrieks permeate the chaotic instrumental accompaniment with everything you’d expect from the genre: walls of distorted guitars, destructive drumming and slightly less noisy sections that highlight the true pandemonium within each song. Only further-defined volume dynamics could have improved this release at all, and that’s only my subjective opinion.
Ben Quad - Ephemera
B+ Tier
Surprisingly less Midwest Screamo than you’d expect based off their seminal single You’re Part of It, Ephemera is nonetheless exactly what fans of Ben Quad have been looking for - a continued exploration of their harsher sounds. I’m happy to report that, just like their non-screamed Emo songs, Ben Quad remain excellent songwriters first and foremost, and exhilarating musicians second. The mathy, twinkly sound of their Midwest Emo songs makes the jump with some Post-Hardcore structure.
gxllium - Breakup Songs
B+ Tier
One of the most bonkers releases of the entire year, Breakup Songs is Gxllium playing their signature frenzied combination of Emoviolence, Mathcore, Grind and Sass with some of the most menacing breakdowns of 2024. If you’ve already heard their debut LP or split with onewaymirror, nothing here is going to surprise you, but it will still slay you.