🖤 Two new releases that prove that emo’s not dead, it just takes some long naps sometimes.

Well hey, having a newborn at home is hard. Between 45-minute spurts of sleep, panic texts to my therapist saying "I can't do this" and so much poop, I didn't always get the opportunity to listen to anything besides Sparrow Sleeps (who'll get a dedicated post soon because thank god for Sparrow Sleeps). But, as the summer winds down and Starbucks releases a new fall menu, the universe figured it was a great time to drop albums by incredible contemporary emo bands.

Hot Milk | A Call To The Void

Hot Milk is the politically- and socially-charged punk you’ve been missing since you stopped listening to Bad Religion. They’re for you if you felt like you missed out on the hype around Pierce the Veil and you wanted to try again, if you wish Billie Eilish went harder, or if you like a combination of playful nihilism and bands that feel like they’ll tell you to “make some fucking noise”.

I first heard of Hot Milk on a hot Sunday in late May, nursing a hangover that was the lightest among my friends. We were at Adjacent Festival in Atlantic City, looking for a band to kick off the day with. My friend’s boyfriend said he had heard HM before and that they were fun. What we got was honest-to-god pop-punk turned up to 11.5, with electrified drum beats, heavy guitars, and amazing vocals blasting through Han Mee’s heavy Manchester accent.

Favorite Songs: Alice Cooper’s Pool House, Bloodstream, Party on my Deathbed

Spanish Love Songs | No Joy

Spanish Love Songs is music for people who wish the Alkaline Trio sounded more like Bruce Springsteen. No Joy is the last album you listen to before you decide that everyone telling you get your shit together had been right this whole time.

I saw SLS open for The Wonder Years last year - it always seems like some of my favorite bands come out of Wonder Years shows. I guess Dan Campbell just knows how to pick them. Knuckle Puck, Real Friends, Mooseblood, Jetty Bones, The Starting Line (okay, that last one was kind of a gimme). Either way, when I saw them, my wife even commented that she liked them because “it sounds like he can actually sing - he still yells sometimes, but there’s some singing in there”.

No Joy feels like the response to a cry for help. The 80s synth-pop themes in the music play off of  Dylan Slocum’s blue-collar-emo vocals (think Gaslight Anthem or the Menzingers) to create an album that sounds just as ready to start a fight as it is to reluctantly go to therapy.

Favorite songs: Lifers, Haunted, Clean-up Crew, Re-emerging Signs of the Apocalypse