https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZGXw2RqXGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6iIeiPtv9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6o34BC1cq0
https://fireworksmi.bandcamp.com/album/higher-lonely-power
when these guys came out more than a decade ago they sounded like the follow-up to take this to your grave that fall out boy never made, but across three albums it became clear to me that no one in the scene was writing hooks as good as theirs and that their music was developing into something different, to the point where it became refreshingly difficult to categorize them as pop-punk. there's of course a pop-punk-to-alt-rock pipeline that most bands don't survive without releasing something meager and mediocre (cf. sidekicks, wonder years, whatever turnover are doing now) but i would've called oh common life the best example of a band landing that transition successfully. then they broke up and the scene and my emo threads drifted rudderless for years
until 2019! when they released a really amazing song called "demitasse," teased the album, and then went quiet again. saga of heartbreak for me personally
until yesterday! when they surprise-released higher lonely power, making it their first album in nine years, and on which the exploded size of their ambition is totally visible. obv pop-punk can still be heard ("goodnight tomb" with regular production would sound like a regular fireworks song, "funeral plant" is pure early sidekicks with '90s fuzz tones) but they are mostly just roots from which these songs severely twist away into mists and stars. there is absolutely a breakbeat section
not everyone's gonna be down with this (especially because the lead singer has always sounded like patrick stump if he couldn't really sing at all, which for whatever reason means that in a more indie rock atmosphere he sounds like win butler (ugh)). but it sure is designed for me. happy new year :)
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, 2 January 2023 16:16 (two years ago) link