The Colour Blue

 The Colour Blue are best known for their contribution to the eighth chapter of The Emo Diaries. There are a lot of bands on The Emo Diaries, so if that isn't ringing any bells, perhaps you may remember them as the band that gifted us with the rare (and perhaps only?) emo track which begins with an extended saxophone solo. Yes, it's exactly as strange as you would expect, an addition that gives the emo pop a noir-ish, steamy quality, and it's... certainly something.

However you decide to feel about that, the band's previous songs are nothing like it. The band's first release, 2000's split with Kill Devil Hills, features rough emo pop with a lot of 90s pop punk in it. In the following two years the band would change recording studios and also change their music direction, resulting in the far more polished indie emo sound of The Emo Diaries track, which was taken from a self-titled two-song 7" that was the band's second and last release. While I don't have a direct rip of the 7", I have MP3s for both songs, "Of Our Disregard" and "Circa Us." 

Perhaps deciding that their new direction was too drastic to not require a name change, the band would change their name to Took To The Sea, and their sole release under that name appears to be a split four-way with Unique Chique, Soft Focus, and The Progress called For Starters. I also have a unique track I found on Soundcloud which seem to be a song that The Colour Blue recorded during their transition to Took To The Sea.

The Colour Blue \ Kill Devil Hills + For Starters + Compilation and Soundcloud Tracks

And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots

 When writing the post on Day Of Less, I kept thinking they reminded me of another band. It wasn't until the run up to this post that I realized they reminded me of And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots. Hailing from Leeds, the Robots were part of the amazing emo scene the UK had at the time, featuring bands like Caesura and One Toy Soldier. Like Day Of Less, they mixed hardcore with midwest emo and emo pop, and also like Day Of Less they abandoned this sound after one album and went almost pure hardcore for the second.

The band's first release was in 2001, the self-titled album featured here. It's their only midwest emo-flavored release, mixing hardcore-style vocals with clean riffs; the much-mourned Castevet (later CSTVT) strike me as a spiritual successor in some ways. Their second album, Liebestod, came out in 2002 and kept only the hardcore aspects of the first. The band's final release was called Victory As A Drug, put out in 2003, and it features yet another sound shift. The band revisits the emo pop\hardcore paradigm, at times sounding like a harder-edged Braid. In 2016, the band released a vinyl-only discography which includes four unique tracks, though it omits the hidden track from Victory. These four tracks are mainly in the style of the first album.

Self-Titled + Liebestod + Victory As A Drug

Vinyl Discography

summer's last regret

Summer's Last Regret were a band from Germany, active from somewhere in the early 2000s to 2003. They were on Redfield Records with contemporaries like On When Ready, a band they share a lot of similarities with. But Summer's Last Regret don't have much midwest emo in their makeup, instead delivering pure late-90s-style emo pop punk.

The band's only release was the Understanding EP, put out in 2002. Shortly after they called it quits and moved on to other projects.

understanding

Sad Breakfast

 If indeed every nation has it's own Mineral, then Sad Breakfast have legitimate claim to being the Mexican Mineral. Not the only ones, mind you—Invalido should probably throw their hat in that ring too. But Sad Breakfast are definitely in the running, and for my money a slightly better fit. Formed in Mexico City in 1999, Sad Breakfast initially played midwest emo in the mid-90s tradition. Over the course of their discography their sound would incorporate more and more alternative and post-rock influences, but the focus of this post is their first album, which is almost undiluted midwest emo and an audible testament to the worldwide appeal of that sound.

The band's first release was in 1999, an EP called with the sunshine in my eyes (this is also the only one of the pre-album EPs I've found.) Two more EPs followed: Sad Breakfast en vivo in 2001 and Don't Try To Forget in 2002. Their first full length was 2003's don't try to forget… that's why people take pictures, an album that contains a lot of songs from the earlier EPs. It would see a rerelease three years later in 2006 with a bonus track. 2006 was also the year of their second album, The Time… To Come Back, which is actually a compilation of two EPs that were released in 2005 and 2006. The band's final release was a self-titled instrumental EP in 2009.

With The Sunshine In My Eyes + don't try to forget… that's why people take pictures

Sad Breakfast on Bandcamp