Parkview were a band from Philadelphia, active in the first half of the aughts. They were releasing between 2002 and 2003 and I don't think they made it as far as 2005, though I can't be certain. For the time period in which they existed, their sound is not unusual in composition, but in ratio. Many of their emo pop contemporaries dabbled with the sounds of 90s midwest emo; Parkview made it half of their sonic palette. The connection is fitting because either through production limitations or design, they were not as excessively polished as one might assume given their era.
The band's only full length album is 2003's Breatherapy, an excellent combination of 2000s emo pop with 90s midwest emo and pop punk. They had at least two EPs prior to that with some overlap in what songs were included, though I don't know if those songs were rerecorded for the album or remain in their original form. In 2002 they had an EP called fortunately, unfortunately with five songs, and a four song EP before that in what I believe to be the same year. Sadly, I haven't been able to find either EP and only have the LP.
Grace Like Gravity were a band from Denver, Colorado, active in the early 2000s and possibly before or after, as I'll get to. Last.FM claims they broke up shortly after the release of their EP, which implies they called it quits in 2005. They played a blend of pop punk, mainstream post-hardcore, and emo pop. While the era of their existence implies a certain connection to the strongest currents in emo at the time, they really have more of the 90s emo punk scene in them, which is to say these guys were closer to Eleventeen than Hawthorne Heights. They played with Midtown and Fall Out Boy, which gives you an idea of where they were coming from.
Their first album was in 2004, nothing we say leaves this room. Its combination of emo pop and post-hardcore works quite well, and the addition of some hardcore vocals give it an edge a lot of their contemporaries lacked. Album closer "liar campaign' is a real highlight. In 2005 they released an EP called No Sense of Urgency, which is aiming for something different. The band swerves towards the kind of pop punk/dance punk that one might expect from Panic! At The Disco. The EP lacks that extreme level of polish and doesn't fully commit to the change, retaining a lot of their previous characteristics, but it's still an indication that they might have been headed in a different sonic direction.
Their third release is where things get vague. The Eisenhower Plan is, theoretically, their second album. There are two problems with this. First off, they are supposed to have disbanded in 2005, and the album was released in 2016. Secondly, it sounds nothing like the EP. I don't know for sure what's going on and I haven't been able to find any information on the LP at all, it just appeared on streaming along with the rest of the band's discography; however, according to Spotify, it was added a year after the other two releases, which have a date of 2015.
I don't think this is really a second album; not one that was released in 2016, anyway. I think The Eisenhower Plan is either an unreleased second album, recorded before the band broke up, or it may be their actual first album. This theory is completely unsubstantiated, but I find it compelling based on the album's sound, which does not at all follow from the EP and even lacks so much of the 2000s emo influence from nothing we say leaves this room. Compared to that album, Eisenhower might as well be MxPx. That's an exaggeration, of course, but it illustrates the divide.The purer emo-pop punk of Eisenhower could be an indication of earlier work. Or, maybe the band really did get back together and drop a whole new album eleven years after their previous release, who knows.
Thanks to life.love.regret86 for pointing me in this band's direction.
Steven Shoelace is an artist from Portland, Oregon, active beginning in 2021 and releasing new material as of this post. His music sits at an intersection between bedroom pop, lofi indie rock, emo pop, and midwest screamo. This is a simplification and perhaps even an oversimplification because his attachment to genre is far from slavish and can shift pretty dramatically between releases. In output, he is as I described, but in ethos he is experimental.
Classifying his discography is a bit difficult because he hasn't stated in his releases what is considered an EP or an album, so I'm going by track number. There are a number tracks and compilations dating back to 2021 on Soundcloud, including an album, uneven shoelace. However, it looks like his first official release is the "i need you" single in 2022, with two other releases following that same year: the cat medallion EP and a second EP, SCARY! His first full-length, IN HELL, dropped 2023; his most current release came in 2024, Garden Snakes. I also have a release called Scary Cat (or Scaredy Cat on the CD label) which appears to be the first two EPs combined.
Big thanks to Steven for sending the physical releases over. I don't believe I have ever scanned a note included by an artist, but this one was so quintessentially emo in form and content that I knew I had to.
Dina were a band from Liverpool, active from the late 90s to what appears to be 2004, though their timeline is somewhat vague. Over the course of their career, their sound gradually shifted from midwest emo-adjacent emo pop to punk, though they never completely lost their emo leanings. Although they remained an emo band to a variable extent over the length of their existence, they were mostly associated with the UK punk scene of the time, at one point touring with Leatherface.
Their first release (that I have, that is; see below) was Grampus Eight Versus Dina, a split EP with another Liverpool band in 1999. Collective Zine described the production as "pretty rough," which is putting it mildly. I think my copy has been done no favors by CDr rot as well. 2001 saw two releases, and while I believe that the 7" split with The Atlantic Monthly was released first, I can't say that with complete confidence. It features the song 'Sea Murmur,' the lyrics of which provided the name for the band's first full-length; it's Dina's most midwest emo song, and unsurprisingly my favorite track from them. It also appeared on the Erdata Ishee compilation.
The second 2001 release was Electricity Gave Me A Heart Murmur, the first LP and the one most appreciated by the emo community. It's a blend of midwest emo, emo pop, and indie rock, with clear influences from the UK punk scene. It's a pretty laid back album and usually, though not purely, focused on mood rather than energy, which wouldn't be that notable if it weren't for their second album. In 2002 the band contributed an acoustic track to the Postcards From The Heartland compilation, and then 2003 saw their last release, their second full-length Work the Switch. Moving away from the sound of the first album, it's heavier, faster, and fits more neatly within the scene of their contemporaries. Think Hooton Three Car, Blocko, or Servo, and you're in the right ballpark.
My collection is sadly incomplete, and all attempts to contact former bandmembers have thus far failed (I can't even find a picture of them that isn't in the album art). Multiple releases remain unrecovered. There was a CDr called The Owl which had six songs, five of which made their way to Work The Switch, but that leaves one unaccounted for. There was also what appears to be an EP, Lenny the Lion MC, which featured "4 songs off our first demo," implying that there were more than four songs on that demo, and that demo might only be the first of an unknown number. The three songs from the split with Grampus Eight are also from that demo, so which tracks (if any) overlap and which are missing is anyone's guess.
Most confusing of all, there is a release listed as CANT SAY SPLIT 7". The song which the band supposedly contributed to this split is "??????????????" It is unclear if the split was called Can't Say or if it was a split with a band of that name, but it was to be released by Wallride Records. That label is based in Maryland, so it's possible this was planned as a split between Dina and Can't Say from Baltimore. Whatever the case, I don't think it ever came to be.
This blog has been less active lately, and while there are a few factors that contribute to that, the primary one is this: my ever-rising standards. If you go back and look at my earliest blog posts, you can see that I posted whatever I had on hand, whether that was a single EP or several albums. I might include more of the band's discography if I had it, but otherwise I was content to introduce readers to a band and leave it at that. Over time, as I assembled more and more full discographies, that became the new standard, resulting in an endless limbo of searching for former band members, scouring internet archives, and waiting for months in the (frequently vain) hope of an answer to many, many messages and emails. Thus, updates are few and far between.
So here's a new update on a very accessible band who are not particularly obscure (by the standards of this blog, anyway) and whose entire output is confined to a single CD. I imagine quite a few of the people who frequent this blog are already familiar with the band, but perhaps you will still enjoy some full art scans and FLAC files.
The Player Piano are the rare emo band with their own Wikipedia page, sparing me the effort of writing a brief biography. Active only briefly in the mid-2000s, they were a part of the largely unrecognizedwave of bandscombining post-rockwith the midwest emo sounds of the 90s. The Player Piano also brought some influences from math rock to the table, though these are pretty subdued. The result is one of my favorite albums, something I especially like to vibe with on road trips. It's just one of those works that sonically resonates with the feeling of crossing the midwest.
The band's only LP was a self-titled in 2004, and it saw a very limited release. The band's legacy mostly comes from their posthumous compilation Satellite, put out in 2007 in Japan by Friend of Mine Records and subsequently imported by Sunset Alliance, who released the original LP. Including two additional tracks, it has apparently proven popular enough to warrant represses; my copy was made as recently as 2019. It includes an insert with a lengthy interview that I can't read, but along with the liner notes you can see what appear to be some of the band's influences, including Explosions in the Sky, Christie Front Drive, This Will Destroy You, Mineral, American Football, and Always the Runner. It's a fantastic list that illustrates what the band was aiming for, and they nailed it.
