Screamo surprised the hell out of me when it happened. I wasn’t as into post hardcore then as I am now, and I didn’t realize how long this type of music had been bubbling under the surface. I found it incredible that music that, in some ways, was so off-putting, could be so commercially viable. But I guess it’s not any weirder than when grunge broke and suddenly the majors were signing noise rock bands.

What I didn’t realize until now was that screamo/emoviolence had existed well before the famous bands broke. (I didn’t even know “emoviolence” was a thing before now. So I’m a little out of my depth here. Also, the of emoviolence very much feels like the same as mathcore, which I find interesting.)

Not knowing anything about screamo or about emoviolence (or about power violence, which combined with screamo to give us emoviolence) I have to go off what I hear and I know. I do know post hardcore pretty well.

This is like mathy post hardcore with a hell of a lot more screaming, way more (and more abrupt) tempo changes, and basically every song is a suite. So in many ways it feels like the logical progression of post hardcore and it also feels like the punk version of metalcore.

The manifesto stuff feels very much nihilist Refused. It’s one spot on the album where I really don’t think things work. (Like, I don’t care what you think.) But make I tell you something I find amusing? I just listened to a Blink-182 record before this and it sure feels like Taylor or Midgette is talking to them when he’s ranting.

I have never heard anything like this – it’s far more aggressive and difficult than any of the screamo I’m vaguely aware of from the aughts. But I want to temper my enthusiasm because it’s very easy for me to read about when screamo was invented as well as “power violence” and neither were invented in the 21st century. I fell like to fully assess this record, I have to listen to a lot of music from the ’90s that I’ve somehow skipped over.

7?/10