Mixtape: The Break-Up Part 2

Well it happened again. A break-up. Which made me revisit the playlist I made last time. Man there were some great songs on there, that covered all the feelings I had. This time around it's a different situation, but it hasn't stopped me making a playlist of new break-up songs!

I was tempted to just list every Brand New song ever (which is my defacto sad soundtrack) but I decided to challenge myself instead.

1. Dangers - (Love Poem)

This album is just pure emotional angst, from the first lyrics to the very end. But there's a theme throughout the whole album, with just small samples that pop up between songs, which culminates right at the end. Sure, it's not a proper song, but it's a great way to start it.

It's so nice to wake up in the morning and not have to tell somebody you love them, when you don't love them anymore

2. Descendents - Everything Sux

Before songs about teenage angst were cool, the Descendents were writing about it. And when your heart is broken, it really does feel like everything sucks today.

My girlfriend's moving this morning
I don't think anything is gonna be okay today
Everything sucks todayGot up on the wrong side of life this morning
Nothing today is gonna go my way

3. Finch - Letters to You

A lot of break-up songs come from my youth. Like this, quite possibly the poppiest song Finch ever wrote (and their most mainstream successful, if memory serves me right). Later on, with their second album about the most random stuff (I think it was drug influenced) they would become one of my favourite bands. But with their first album, it was quite cliche heartbreak/emo.

I'm writing again these letters to you aren't much, I know
But i'm not sleeping and you're not here
The thought stops my heart
Do you notice i'm gone?
Where do you run to so far away?
I want you to know that I miss you, I miss you so

4. I Killed the Prom Queen - Say Goodbye

Yes. It's cheesy metalcore. But back in the day this was MY cheesy metalcore. I loved this album by I Killed the Prom Queen. Most of it was comparing love to death, as was the fashion back then. And this song helps you get some of the break-up related anger out.

So we say goodbye
Heartstrings severed just as quick
As they were discovered
I'll break my own fall, to keep you, picture perfect
Just don't wake me up now

5. Wilco - I am Trying to Break Your Heart

When it's time to get sad, quiet and reflective, what is better than the wavering quality of Jeff Tweedy's voice? His voice in this song just captures the raw edge of emotion that you sit on during a break-up.

I'd always thought that if I held you tightly
You'd always love me like you did back then
Then I fell asleep and the city kept blinking
What was I thinking when I let you back in?
I am trying to break your heart
But still I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easy

6. Bob Dylan - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Oh Dylan. Is there anything you can't sing about without making it beautiful? This song was him explaining why he left his girlfriend at the time. Right now, I'm imagining this song is exactly how she's feeling.

But I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talking anyway
So don't think twice, it's all right.

7. My Chemical Romance - Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough for the Both of Us

Where as Mr Dylan gave us a poetic side of being the dumper, Gerard Way is showing the chaotic break down of a break-up. This song was the first real track (not including the instrumental opener) from their first album. Like a lot of break-up songs, it comes from the teenage emo years of my life. I still love this album unashamedly.

And you can cry all you want to, I don't care how much
You'll invest yourself in me, we're not working out
And you can't touch my brother and you can't keep my friends
and we're not working out
This time I mean it, never mind the times I've seen it

8. The Walkmen - The Rat

Another song of the 2003-2005 period of my life. It was big for me. I moved back to Australia from the USA, leaving behind someone dear to me as well as everything I knew. This song was so different from everything else on their debut album, and it hit a nerve with me. I may have wept when I finally saw this song live last year.

You've got a nerve to be asking a favor
You've got a nerve to be calling my number
I'm sure we've been through this before
Can't you hear me, I'm beating on your wall?
Can't you see me, I'm pounding on your door?

9. Atreyu - Right Side of the Bed

Ahh. Far out. 2003 again. Kind of cheesy metalcore again with overtones of death. But it's just good.

I can see her now, Dancing around, her drink in hand.
All her baggage in tow, I just want to forget and let go of all the love the joy,
the pain. I took your guilt and placed it into me and now I kiss it goodbye.

10. Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Not about a break-up per se, but more about the slow death of love that both of you seem to ignore until it gets to that fatal point.

You're pouting in your sleep, I'm waking still yawning
We're proving to each other that romance is boring
Sure there are things I could do if I was half prepared to
Prove to each other that romance is boring

11. Billy Talent - The Ex

I'm not at this point yet, but I imagine I'll be following the course of the lyrics in this song pretty closely.

Why would she put me through such torture,
I would have given my life for her,
She was the one that knocked me over,
Now I'm alone sitting on the corner

12. The Get Up Kids - Mass Pike

You want real sad emo? You get old school Get Up Kids. All of the emotions. Especially when someone does it with a montague of pictures of love.

I wonder when I wander home If I'll be fit to drink alone.
Sleep with my memories, Pictures, apologies.
For every minute yesterday, Regret reminds me anyway.
If I remember anything, I'll make mistakes again. 

13. Bomb the Music Industry! - I Don't Love You Anymore

This song has always won my award as the best fan-made video ever. It's been stuck in my head since seeing BTMI! in February and I haven't been able to stop singing it. I hope it didn't become a pre-cursor for everything. The Lost line also resembles me way too much. And a bit of ska in a mix tape is always good to cheer up the soul.

I don't love you anymore.
No this isn't some mistake.
For the past two months I've just been getting drunk
And watching Lost and then getting even drunker just so I can fall asleep.
Every second I'm with you I get an ache in my head
And I spin in my bed and again and again and again and again.

And all the money I spend is my money again
I'll understand what is said when I'm out with my friends.
And at the end of the night, baby I'm'a gon' drive 'em home.

And all the time that I waste repeating mistake
And the ridiculous taste and the look on my face.
I'm gonna take it back.
Baby I don't love you no more.

14. No Doubt - Don't Speak

It's well known that Gwen and the bass player who's name escapes me were dating before the release of this album. This song beautifully documents the break up.

You and me
We used to be together
Everyday together always
I really feel
That I'm losing my best friend
I can't believe
This could be the end 

15. New Found Glory - Hit or Miss

Pop-punk. Of all the genres I listen to, I don't think you'll find as many whiny sounding songs about love and regrets. New Found Glory is probably the best of them all.

Have I waited too long
Have I found that someone
Have I waited too long to see you

Maybe it's for the best
Maybe it's not for anything
It wouldn't be so bad to take this right from me

16. Rod Stewart - Maggie May

Time to move away from my teenage years and into the classics again. This song, as far as I can tell, is about the failed fling between a young male and his older, richer lover. It captures the moment when Rod is deciding to end it.

I know I keep you amused but I feel I'm being used
Oh maggie I couldnt have tried any more
You lured me away from home just to save you from being alone
You stole my heart and that's what really hurt

17. The Vandals - My Girlfriend's Dead

The worst part of any break-up is telling everyone about it. Having to explain why it happened. The Vandals had a novel solution: pretend she's dead.

I once had a girlfriend,
But then one day she dumped me and everywhere
I'd go people would ask me where she was.

I don't want to talk about her.
Someone always asks about her.
So I tell them all my girlfriend's dead.

18. The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love (With Some You Shouldn't've)?

Apparently heartache has been around for a long time. Even with the early punks in the 70s. 

I can't see much of a future
Unless we find out what's to blame
What a shame
And we won't be together much longer
Unless we realize that we are the same

Ever fallen in love with someone?
In love with someone
You shouldn't've fallen in love with

19. Arrows - Pour Me Into a Taxi

My friends have been getting depressed and emo to Arrows for years. I never understood why. I guess I first heard them when I was happy, through a friend that worked with the guitarist. But now even the tones of the guitar just make me weepy. The lyrics don't share the heartache when being read. Put it together as a narrative with the music and it just encompasses the whole feeling of the end of love.

There’s a photo by your bed of the two of us in Europe and it scares me to think of how many different men would’ve cast their eyes upon it on a Sunday morning. " When we sat on the curb outside my Sister’s house, did you really think I loved you?" "Are you that optimistic, or are you just that fucking naive?” you asked me.

 

Best of 2010: Albums

My best of 2010 albums list has very little crossover with my best of 2010 songs list. 2010 has seen some amazing albums released where some songs were maybe not amazing to stand out by themselves, but together on place in an album it just puts it all together. I was aiming for a list of 5. Then it became 10. And then it became 20. There's just been so many good albums put out over so many different genres that I couldn't separate them. So here's the top 20, starting with the two that just missed out.

22. Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
21. Kid Cudi - Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager

20. Daughters - Daughters

Chaotic, noisy, math-hardcore. It’s hard to describe this band as they blend so much in to their self-titled (and last) album. At times it’s an assault on your ears that still manages to make sense in music, all while topped off with quirky, almost spoken vocals.

19. Crime In Stereo - I was Trying to Describe You to Someone

A turn around from their emo-punk days. Unfortunately their last album, they followed their friends Brand New with an evolution of sound into a more rounded, well produced rock feel. This comparison is not a bad thing, as Brand New are one of those few bands that continually change their sound, generally for the better.

18. Cower - Land Before Time

It’s like Black Sabbath decided to form a hardcore band. Dark detuned guitars, with an almost Ozzy styled vocals but playing with more of a hardcore feel and riffs. At times there’s also a very blues influence, including the random acoustic track towards the end of the album, which shows off some very nice acoustic guitar blues.

17. Ghostface Killah - Apollo Kids


After a remix album and an experimentation with R’n’B, Wu Tang’s most prolific member (in my opinion) has returned to the style we know and love him for: that of a slick rapper rhyming about the grimey life of the streets. As always it features a slew of guest rappers from the mighty Wu, but Apollo Kids also includes guests such as Black Thought from the Roots and Busta Rhymes. This is almost as good as the Ghostface of old.

16. The Chemical Brothers - Further

The last Chemical Brothers album was an abomination on my ears. Especially the fish song. *shudders* Luckily on Further they’ve completely changed tack. Gone are the almost all the vocals. Instead we are left with 8 highly polished tracks of beautiful electronic music. Ranging from relaxing chill out parts, to dreamy sequences to full on assault noise and dance beats, this album has it all. An absolute masterpiece.

15. Envy – Recitation

Normally when I see the words “post-rock” mentioned anywhere near a band, I get a bit hesitant. When done well, it’s beautiful music, but more often than not it sees my eyes slowly drooping shut until my neck rocks forward in sleep, as their seemingly never-ending soft-instrumentals lull me. And then there’s Envy. It’s not post-rock per se, but Recitation swims in a major post-rock influence. But then it’s mixed (shaken and stirred) with screamo and hardcore. And what you get is one of the most beautiful albums ever recorded. The songs are so amazingly structured, it’s almost symphonic. They build up from gorgeous melodies that just swell and swell until they hit a cinematic climax, at which point the crunching heaviness occasionally kicks in. The only bad thing about this album is that my minimal conversational Japanese I know isn’t enough to understand the lyrics. But you don’t need the lyrics, the beauty of the language just flows with the music.

14. Girl Talk - All Day


Sure, it’s not “real” music. None of it is original. It’s just an entire album of samples. But where most people would just mix a musical track with a lyrics track, Girl Talk goes OCD with the level of detail that only a musical fan boy could do. From the opening seconds of Ludacris over Black Sabbath, to the hidden gem that is Fugazi with Rhianna (and an appearance of Dr Octagon), Girl Talk rewards his listeners for paying attention. All Day is an all-encompassing and never ending game of “name that song” (here’s the answers if you want to cheat). And he’s made all the samples work together to actually sound like real songs. A whole 71 minutes. A whole 71 minutes that was released for free, just to make it sweeter.

13. Toadies – Feeler


I’ll be honest, before I heard this album I was like everyone else in the world: I only knew of one Toadies song, Possum Kingdom, all the way from the mid nineties. And that’s the reason why this album is rating so high for me. It sounds like they pulled it straight out of the mid 90’s and right into 2010. It’s that raw grungy-sound that defined 90’s alternative rock. Which is more or less what this album is. It was originally recorded as their second album in 1997 and 1998 and was just never released due to label disputes. Until over a decade later. The songs still sound relevant in this modern musical landscape, probably more so than the 90s, as that grunge sound has almost died away and is now unique again.

12. Meth, Ghost & Rae - Wu-Massacre


Wu-Massacre is about as close to a real Wu-Tang clan album we’ll ever get these days. It’s got three-eighths of the Wu artists on every track, with more guest appearances (as you’d expect from any modern rap album). At times it’s more polished than what you’d expect from a Wu album, but there’s plenty of old school sounding moments when for a glorious few minutes you think it’s the full group.

11. Robert Plant - Band of Joy

Not bad for a 62 year old. Not bad for a 62 year old that once fronted the greatest (source needed) rock and roll band ever. Of course there will be comparisons drawn from Band of Joy to Led Zeppelin, but I won’t be one to indulge much in that. All I will say is that it sounds more like the quieter Zeppelin songs (think like All of My Love and Travelling Riverside Blues). Band of Joy, with no comparisons to classical rock, is just a good album of blues and southern American influenced rock and folk. It’s the kind of songs that you could easily imagine playing around a campfire as the night wanes on. And on some of the tracks there’s a beautiful female harmony added in.

10. The Walkmen - Lisbon

After blowing me away with their first single the Rat in 2003, the Walkmen has been one of those bands that are very hit and miss. Each album has a few good tracks and then the rest just become a screech in my ears, with the singer’s vocals wavering and not finding key. However, Lisbon is what happens when they finally get it right. The Walkmen have finally managed to live up to their potential (in my eyes at least). They’ve nailed the melodies in what is a very laid-back and relaxed indie release.

9. The Chariot - Long Live

Long Live is chaos. From the very first seconds of the opening track Evan Perks, as the feedback whines and fills the speakers, the Chariot just explode. The chaos treads a fine line to just becoming horrible noise, but somehow it never crosses the line. It’s so chaotic that at times the songs gets interrupted half-way through with a random olde-timey sample or there’s a guest vocalist with an oddball voice that pops up. The Chariot has always been that Norma Jean copycat band (due to their histories together and very similar sounds) but Long Live has finally seen them establish their own sound.

8. Nas & Damian Marley - Distant Relatives

A combination of hip-hop and reggae and songs about African-American roots in Africa. Take one of the better MC’s (Nas) and the son of reggae’s demi-god (Damian Marley, who’s pretty damn good himself) and there’s really no way this album fails. There’s some great jungle-inspired beats overlayed with some uplifting and almost inspirational lyricism. It’s not often (in my narrow view of the hip-hop world at least) where artists dedicate an entire album to a theme. Nas and Damian have really nailed the them with great music in Distant Relatives.

7. Norma Jean - Meridional

Norma Jean’s last album, the Anti-Mother, moved away from their traditional song writing strengths. They softened down and wrote full length songs. The fans will tell you it wasn’t their best work (myself included). However, on Meridional they return with full crushing force. The songs return to the same style as the magnificence that was their album Redeemer. Crushing and dirty guitar riffs, repeated and shouted lyrics interspersed with surprisingly quiet (yet still aggressive) fills. Not quite on par with Redeemer, but in my opinion it’s their second best album.

6. Neil Young - Le Noise


Many would say Neil’s greatest work is in the past, and I’m not one to argue against that. Lately he’s come up against that great wall most artists with more than a few ‘good’ albums face: how to reinvent themselves. And with Le Noise, Neil has done an outstanding job. The album producer has just stripped everything away from Neil Young’s music, making it just a man, his guitar, his voice and his lyrics. What is left is just raw: emotions and music. Whether it’s a song with reverb and feedback on his electric guitar and loud singing, or just a soft sounding acoustic with equally soft vocals, it’s a side of Neil you’ve yet to see. It makes him almost seem frail and weak, while still trying to maintain a strong revolutionary frontage. It’s a very good symbolism for the man he is now. Plus it’s called Le Noise for a reason. It gets quite noisy at times.

5. The Bouncing Souls - Ghosts on the Boardwalk

As a huge Bouncing Souls fan, this album was a long time coming. Their last record, the Gold Album, was anything but gold (so much that in their last tour they played zero songs off the album). Most of Ghosts on the Boardwalk had been leaked with their 20th Anniversary 7 inch series, but I didn’t care. When it came together as a package, it became a great album. From the beginning build up of Gasoline to the typical fast & hardcore nonsense that is Badass, this is a great album. They’ve slowed up their hardcore/pop-punk (maybe their age) but they still manage to rock great songs.

4. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Hawk
These two, without a doubt, have the sexiest voices in rock and roll (well, maybe with a Tom Waits exception). Over the past few years the former Belle and Sebastian cellist and Screaming Trees/Queens of the Stone Age singer have put out a few albums of alt-country/folk ballads. I’d heard them and thought there were a few great songs, but then out of the blue came Hawk. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I saw Mark Lanegan play at around the same time I got this album, but I fell in love hard with Hawk. Hawk covers everything from soft and sad vocal songs, to old school American-country/rockabilly, to 1960’s noisy garage rock jams in the title track (is that a distorted saxophone I hear in there?). All of this in an album that maintains some sort of beauty over the whole length, and is so accessible that even my Dad could listen to it while harvesting grain for 14 hours a day (and he did).

3. Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Where the hell has Los Campesinos been my entire life?! On Romance is Boring this Welsh band carves out a luscious, and at times orchestral, indie-keyboard-pop. Each song is beautifully layered with the mix of instruments. The songs feel like they have a mind of their own, changing keys, time signatures and beats at random times, like the mathcore bands I love. But then there’s the vocals. A brooding male and a chirpy female interplaying with each other. Singing some of the most poetic and literary lyrics I have ever heard. Most of the lyrics are fairly jaded, obviously about the death of romance and love (as per the album title). Romance is Boring takes me on a roller coaster ride of sad and brooding, angry and noisy, happy and dancing and soft and contemplative... It’s as if they chronicled an entire relationship into an album.

2. Dangers - Messy, Isn't It?

From the start, with the guitar twanging and Al asking “Why didn’t you kill yourself today?” you can’t help but feel the anger. The guitar is heavy and low, the vocals are spat out at you with such ferocity and the lyrics themselves are dark and disturbing (although some songs such as Opposable are almost laughable at its word play). Throughout the course of the album we hear snippets of people incanting “It’s so nice to wake up in the morning all alone and not have to tell somebody you love them, when you don’t love them anymore”. There are songs about the speed at which cancer can strike you down (based on his grandfather’s death) and prejudice towards homosexuals. Messy Isn’t It definitely covers all of the darker sides of life we want to ignore, with the accompanying hardcore music complementing the anger towards the dismissal of this subject matter. And it fucking rocks hard.

1. Bars of Gold - Of Gold


From the 8 bit intro of the song Boss Level, you know you’re listening to something unique and different from most music. It starts as an homage to 80s video games (the music, the lyrics “you ride a horse you better carry a gun” and even the song title!) before sliding into a punk guitar feel. The rest of the album is just a curve ball. It jumps all over the place from dance guitar, banjos, math-rock, hardcore, punk, country and folk. When reading it, it sounds like an absolutely bloody mess. But it works so wonderfully together. It’s probably not for everyone, it sounds rough around the edges but it’s this kind of music that I truly love. Bars of Gold, the bastard child of hardcore band Bear vs Shark, shows that musicians are willing to put everything out there and experiment with new sounds and still make great music.

Best of 2010: Songs

This has been one of the best years of music in about the last half decade for me. It started somewhat slowly, but over time most of my musical fancies were more than satisfied. There's been so much good music that this list has taken me months to write, and been revised more times than I care to remember. And this whole time, relistening to these songs over and over and over again, I've just come to love them even more.

So here it is, my ten favourite songs of 2010 (each title includes a link to hear the song).

11. Pink Robots - Curly
I included this at number 11, as I needed my cliché Scandinavian pop-band entry for 2010 and this really just missed out. A beautiful back and forth between a female and male singer with synth-pop music. Gosh the Scandinavians do this well.

10. Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
Greys Anatomy: destroyer/overplayer of good quality alternative-pop songs. Yet despite the thrashing Greys and Channel 7 has given this song, it’s been almost a year of listening to it and it’s still such a cheerful little indie-folk song that you just can’t help singing along to.

9. Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - Levi Johnstone's Blues
Their collaboration album seemed too much for me. The lyrics were over worked, which is what happens when an author tries to write music. But holy hell, this song is just so goddamned funny in it’s American political/celebrity satire that I had to put it in.

I'm a fuckin' redneck, I live to hang out with the boys
Play some hockey, do some fishin' and kill some moose
I like to shoot the shit and do some chillin' I guess
You fuck with me and I'll kick your ass

8. Chemical Brothers - Escape velocity
This album came out of nowhere and floored me. I was expecting more crappy dance-pop from the Chemical Brothers but instead I got epically long electronica tracks like this.

7. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - U.S. 41
Tom Petty takes a break from his continual songs about drug use and makes an excellent road trip country-blues-rock song. Possibly in my top 10 purely for the use of slide guitar.

6. Comeback Kid - Because of All the Things You Say
It’s a hardcore song that could almost be passed off as a mainstream rock song. I’m not sure what about it makes it like this, it’s still hard and heavy, it’s got very shouted/gravelly vocals, but this song just makes you want to sing along every time you hear it.

5. Menomena – Taos
That driving bass line. It just worms its way into your head and sticks there. The guitars at times sound disjointed and sampled, but so do all of the instrumentals in this song (probably has to do with their much lauded recording method). Yet it all comes together superbly.

4. Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring
The title track of their new album, it sums up everything I love about this band. Great sing alongs, male v female vocals, slightly poetic and jaded lyrics you can identify with, noisy guitars, keyboard and synth and all wrapped up in a dance-along pop package.

3. Dangers - Stay-at-home Mom
The perfect start to a crushing hardcore album. “Why didn’t you kill yourself today?” it asks, before exploding into a deconstruction of a stepford-wife existence while her kids run wild listening to bands like Dangers. Halfway through it breaks down into an almost circus-like musical ditty, before closing off rather hard and rapidly. This song has been stuck in my head all year, so much that I named my blog after a lyric in this song.

2. Ceremony - Into The Wayside Part I/Sick
A post-punk guitar riff and musical feel slowly builds up into an almost classical 80s hardcore style song, lamenting everything that the singer is annoyed at in modern life. It’s Ceremony’s cry about what has become, their sound channels the music they used to love from a better time (musically) while this happens:

Sick of living
Sick of people dying
Sick of the buying
Sick of trying
Sick of television
Sick of telephones
Sick of homophobes
Sick of condos
I'm sick.

1. Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union
Their album, the Monitor, is a concept album about a man leaving New Jersey to join the American Civil War. This song, the opening track, introduces us to the story in the most ass-kicking garage-rock way possible. Full guitars build this up into a classic rock anthem, with parts challenging Springsteen and Mellancamp of old. This is a modern classic American rock anthem. This song, every time I listen to it, gives me such goosebumps and patriotism for America, and I’m not even American! “Rally around the flag boys!” Their music video is only about half of the song, right before it builds up to the full patriotism.

Spoken Word Hardcore

Every few months I become absolutely obsessed with some sort of music, whether it is a band, a genre or just a country of origin (my Swedish obsession still kicks back in occassionally). My last big musical obsession was twee, given the awesomeness of the new Los Campesinos album and my rediscovering Bis. My newest obsession is a bit of a backflip, and not really a genre or anything at all. In fact I don't even know what to call it. In my head I have dubbed it Spoken Word Hardcore.


So how to describe it? It's obviously hardcore music, but at the same time it's not. Some of the bands I've grouped into this category have hardcore instrumentals, but almost completely spoken word lyrics (shouted a lot mind you). On the other end there are the almost indie/post-rock/mathrock clean instrumentals with half-shouted hardcore style vocals. Confused? Yeah, I can imagine so. So here's my quick run down of bands that I've been listening to as part of my obsession with this made up genre. I've hidden links to songs, free mp3s, websites, videos throughout all of the text.

Bradley Hathaway
The reason I am in this kick probably goes back to one starting point: Bradley Hathaway. It's not even music, it's poetry. I bought his first book a few months back and I have been slowly reading it while listening to the accompanying CD. It's basically a hardcore (if not uber-Christian) style of poetry. Hell, his book is riddled with testimonials from guys in hardcore bands (The Chariot/Norma Jean/etc). His delivery style is a shouted kind like old school beat-poets and his subject matter touches people in the hardcore scene. Especially the poem/track The Annoying Hardcore Dude That Goes Too Far. Anyone that goes to any heavy shows knows this guy that he is talking about.

Minor Threat & Fugazi
Every genre has a starting point, and in my made up sub-genre it would be Minor Threat, although most people would say they were the starting point to most of hardcore music in general. Their songs were short and fast, with a lot of the lyrics seeming to be quick half spoken/half shouted. They couldn't really sing to keep up with the speed of their guitars. After the short-lived Minor Threat broke up, Fugazi formed from the ashes. Although not as hardcore as Minor Threat, Fugazi slowed things down with more song structure and songs that bordered on indie releases. However, the vocals are still sung in an almost spoken way.

I'm going to go through the bands starting at the clean end and working towards the heavy end.

mewithoutYou
Bordering on the instrumental and folk side of things, mewithoutYou is a band that is hard to categorise. Some of their songs are lovely little folk-acoustic pieces, while some of their songs build up to a loud and distorted crescendo. Over the top of all of this though is Aaron's vocals, an interesting blend of spoken word and hardcore shouting. This band works as hard as any hardcore band I have ever seen and leaves nothing behind when they take the stage. The best example of mewithoutYou is their album Brother Sister, which can turn on a dime from quiet to loud.

Here's a video I recorded of them from my last trip to the USA.

La Dispute
Apart from Mr Hathaway, this band is the other reason that I am on this kick. After being told a million times to listen to them, I finally got around to it. Their sound is unique: indie guitars at times, with beautiful clean melodies and some basic singing and speaking over the top. Then they hit the distortion and the vocals ramp up and become rough and almost screamed. The lyrics are also quite poetic. Their new release is a split EP with Touche Amore and it's slightly heavier than their last album Somewhere At The Bottom Of The River Between Vega And Altair.

Blacklisted
Blacklisted sit nicely in the middle of all of the bands. The instrumentation is much heavier and more hardcore like than the earlier bands, but the vocals are still almost spoken. Well, audibly shouted is probably a better description. Last year they put out an album entitled No One Deserves to Be Here More Than Me, which I unfortunately did not hear until earlier this year, otherwise it would have easily made my top 10.

End of a Year
Very similar to Blacklisted actually, I only discovered this band a few minutes before writing this article. The guitars and music is a bit more on the hardcore punk side than the other bands.

At this point it gets more difficult, because at it's core, isn't hardcore music, especially punk, generally of this style? The gruff shouted vocals don't lend themselves well to singing, so a lot of times bands sound like they are almost speaking their lyrics instead of singing them. So on the heavier side, with shouted vocals, I kind of place these bands in the list too:

Bane
Pissed Jeans (a hardcore band on Sub Pop Records?! You know it's going to be good)
Almost Home (thanks Clus)
and Melbourne's own Carpathian. If you ignore their early stuff with Crafter on vocals.