Raise Kain

 Raise Kain were a band from Rotterdam, in The Netherlands. They were active from 1997 to 2002, after which they called it quits. The history I've pieced together from web archives is at odds with the one posted here on Skate Punk Memories, which claims the band changed all its members but one between their first album and last release. This does not appear to be true; all the same members are credited on both releases and the list of names on their final webpage farewell remains consistent, so I'm not sure where the other blog got that information from.

The band's first album, Last Action Heroes, is available at Skate Punk Memories, and that's a fitting archive. But while the album is unquestionably a work of pop punk that fits under the broad umbrella of skate punk—and features a few tracks that could have easily been blaring in the background of a Tony Hawk game—it also has a more dour quality than you might expect, with a lot of influence from emo pop. These influences would come to the fore on their subsequent EP, which leaves skate punk behind in favor of 90s-style emo pop\pop punk with some post-hardcore influence.

The band's first release was a 1998 demo tape called Coronation, which I haven't been able to find. In 1999 they released their only full-length, Last Action Heroes. Their last release was the Airborne EP, released either in 2001 or 2002, I have sources for both dates. What's interesting is that their website makes no mention of the EP in 2001, and then in 2002 the page changes to a goodbye message, so it's possible the EP was released posthumously.

Airborne