Benton Falls

Benton Falls, “Sad Like Winter Leaves”

We don’t get a ton of emo around here. Not because I dislike it, but I think mostly because when emo has had its various peaks, I was kind of listening to other stuff, and sort of missed out on a lot of it. I’m definitely the target audience! I’ve sat in a completely dark room listening to Slint’s Spiderland, which is extremely My Emotions Are Hard To Handle. At any rate, I generally like emo, and Benton Falls’ two albums are really very good. And: special shout-out to that song title. That is TREMENDOUS hustle right there. Primo sad boy shit.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, “[Hidden Track]”

There are some things I miss from physical media. Browsing through music stores, looking at cover art, reading through booklets for liner notes and credits, all that stuff was fun. But it’s nice not having to shuffle around CDs, it’s nice not to have to lug stuff around when I want to listen to something different, and it’s really, really nice not to have to deal with stupid hidden tracks.

Six songs today!

Murs, “3:16”

The beat that 9th Wonder put together on this track is smoking hot.

They Might Be Giants, “Can You Find It?”

This song makes more sense if you watch the accompanying video for it. But, uh, I’m not sure if I’d worry too much about it. Also, I think we’ve had this song before, but looking through all these entries to confirm that is a hassle. Uhhh, I’m going to say we did?

Songs over here.

Mudhoney, “Make It Now Again”

It takes a bit for this to turn into a classic Mudhoney song, but once it gets rolling, it’s aboslutely vintage. This is from that rarities collection March to Fuzz, which really is a lot of fun.

Rogue Wave, “Publish My Love”

Underground pop band Rogue Wave kind of sound like an amalgam of about a half-dozen other underground pop bands from the early 2000s. It’s certainly well done, but it never really got me excited. I mean, I only own two albums!

Here’s today.

Benton Falls, “Trail and Terror”

I’ve always been a little fuzzy on the genre “emo”. I’m old enough that it’s come around multiple times as a genre label, being applied to bands ranging from Rites of Spring to Touché Amoré. And it seems like the only thing really tying all these various scenes is some kind of punk sensibility married to heartfelt lyrics. Benton Falls usually gets described as emo themselves, but to my ears, this is pretty much just post-punk. But it’s good post-punk! If this is emo, so is Jawbox, is what I’m saying. And I don’t think anybody has described Jawbox as emo. (OK, somebody certainly has.)