Can you believe it’s been 21 years since 2005? That means the following Midwest emo albums can now head down to Kwik Trip and legally purchase their own cigarettes instead of stealing all of yours to smoke on the roof after the house show.
These three albums were all released in 2005, is what I’m saying.
‘Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home’ by The Newfound Interest In Connecticut
The Newfound Interest In Connecticut was a short-lived Canadian band with one full-length album. They blended intricate math-rock instrumentals with Midwest emo vocals and a lo-fi, recorded-in-the-basement texture. In 2005, the band released Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home. This album is very emo of the early 2000s, at the same time that it’s perfectly timeless. Maybe it’s just a personal love of the genre, but this album holds its own against the DIY music of today.
And yet, I feel that it could only have been made in 2005. It captures a bleakness that denotes endless tree-lined highways and wet, gray parking lots in small towns. But still, it’s full of love at the same time that it aches like a once-broken bone in cold weather. In my opinion, Tell Me About the Long Dark Path Home deserves a place of high esteem in the halls of Midwest emo history.
‘We Left You Sleeping and Gone Now’ by Johnny Foreigner
Johnny Foreigner might be from Birmingham, U.K., but they really know how to capture the Midwest emo spirit. Their 2005 LP We Left You Sleeping and Gone Now differs from the work they’re doing now, the latest album being How To Be Hopeful from 2024. But this early work has a lo-fi charm that you just can’t get from a big-budget studio session.
We Left You Sleeping and Gone Now is a bit of controlled chaos in the sense that nothing really meshes together into a homogenized sound. But that’s essentially its strength, creating little pockets of sound that the ear has to travel to. There’s noticeable space between the instrumentals, vocals, electronics, and percussion that denotes its DIY foundation. That texture is hard to find organically and almost impossible to purposely replicate, because it basically comes from being mixed poorly. And who in their right mind is doing that on purpose? Here, though, it works as a charming experimental detail.
‘Following the Holy Moon Goddess’ by The Summer We Went West
The Summer We Went West existed from 2003 to 2007, forming in College Park, Maryland. They put out one LP in 2005, Following the Holy Moon Goddess, which captured a more typical Midwest emo vocal style, most notably heard from The Front Bottoms. Is that crackly whine a distinct feature of U.S. emo bands? Wherever it came from, The Summer We Went West was definitely there when the blueprint was drafted.
Following the Holy Moon Goddess also has that low-budget texture of the previous bands listed. But there’s something unique about this album that sets it apart from its DIY contemporaries. Is it the electric guitar zipping along behind the melancholy acoustic strumming? The fuzzy electronic elements, or the vocalizations on the opening track? The Summer We Went West may not have lasted long, but maybe they weren’t meant to. There’s something about this band that tells me they formed at exactly the right time, with just the right formula to burn brightly in the Midwest emo heyday.
Photo by Gary Wolstenholme/Redferns)
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