It’s hard not to gush about Town Portal, whose three albums thus far have blended sludge, post-metal and math rock into a riffy, angular soup. The three-piece has ever excelled at dark, moody music based on hypnotic rhythmic interplay between bright guitar, tight drum grooves and earthy, thudding basslines. Seriously, just listen to these basslines.
•LAC•'s first EP 141/146 was a varied beast. In parts it was a tight, almost minimalist piece of instrumental rock, clipped down to clicking drums and relaxed guitar lines. In others it exploded into walls of reverb'ed guitar that sounded like a band of hundreds rather than three.
It might come to no surprise to listeners who have followed the progress of 'third wave' emo, whose twinkly roots lie in the sad states of the middle US, that Illinois's Brownie Mountain's Midwest Chic does not fall far from the proverbial tree
Emo is a word that has come to mean so many things to so many different people, so to use it in popular musical discussion is to invite confusion. Any label that is invoked to speak of Rites of Spring, My Chemical Romance, Cap’n Jazz and Foxing is one whose use as an adjective is majorly in question.