Small Town Hero

Small Town Hero were a band from Connecticut, formed either in 1998 or sometime before that. Their website was first archived in 1999 but there is a video of them playing a show in 1998. By 2002 they had lost their lead singer and called it quits after that, though I can't say exactly when. Musically, they were a combination of pop punk, emocore, and melodic hardcore, with most of the emphasis being on the first two.

Their first official release was the and so it goes… EP in 1999, though considering their existence prior to that year it's possible there was a demo before the EP. The track listing on the artwork is comprised of four songs but there are actually six on the CD—I sourced the names for the last two songs by matching the lyrics from an archive of the band's 'songs' page. In 2000, the band released a split with A Voice of Reason on Triple Crown Records, Things to Do in Connecticut When You're Dead. This was their last release, but they did post two additional songs to their website that were intended to be on a forthcoming full LP release. Sadly, that album never came to be and the songs are not recoverable.

Small Town Hero

three summers gone

 Three Summers Gone were a band who formed in South Carolina but ended up being based in San Francisco. They came together after the breakup of a band called Blue In The Face, a project I can't find any additional information on. They were active from 1998 to at least 2001 and possibly some time after that, though 2001 saw their first and only album release. The band shared members with Box The Compass, Under A Dying Sun, and With Eyes Like Static.

Based on the opening notes of Three Summers Gone's sole album, 2001's Time Well Spent, you would reasonably expect a late-90s style fusion of pop punk and emo pop, but the song will quickly change to prove you wrong. All the bands that Three Summers Gone shared members with are some form of emocore\screamo, and that influence bleeds into their work in a substantial way. I actually think their sound is really interesting, a melding of emo pop, emocore, and screamo, ending up with something similar to melodic hardcore, what I guess I would call emocore-pop, if there is such a thing. Depending on the song, it's either rough, emocore-edged pop punk, or poppy emocore, the ratio always in swing.

Prior to the album, the band contributed two tracks to a compilation on their label, Substandard. If they ever released anything else, I can't currently find it. The album is available on streaming platforms, but the first song is corrupted.

compilation tracks + time well spent

Embrace Fire

 Embrace Fire were a band from the Netherlands, active from 2004 to what appears to be somewhere around 2008, though they may have kept playing live past that point; they released two compilation tracks that year, and their website went offline at the end of it. The band included members from Raise Kain and springrain. Musically, Embrace Fire had more in common with bands like Life at These Speeds or Your Halo Is A Radar than their previous work, combining angular emo\post-hardcore with post-punk. The band's own press release describes the result as a combination of "Bloc Party, Explosions In the Sky and At the Drive-In," and… that's actually a pretty accurate self-assessment, especially for a piece of promotional fluff, though it does downplay the emo influences in the music, which are strong.

The band's first release was an EP in 2006, We Lost Our Organ Player in a great earthquake. It was self-released on a CDr in a cardboard sleeve (the first copy I bought was corrupted, forcing me to source a second). Later that same year, the band released a digital single through a website called Thrown, Unthrown. Sadly, no archives remain. One of the two songs, the title track, was put on a compilation, but the other track remains lost. Besides that, there was one other song on a compilation, "The Soft House," which showcases the band heading in a very different direction from the EP, moving towards post-rock. I would have liked to hear what they would have done with that sound, but nothing came of it.

Best as I can determine, that means I'm only missing one song from Embrace Fire, but their discography is small enough that a single song still represents a significant chunk of it.

Embrace Fire

Red Eye Nine

 Red Eye Nine were a band from Boston, active in the late 90s. They were on Lunch Records along with fellow Bostonian emo\post-punk band Helicopter Helicopter. This review on AllMusic seems to indicate they went through some lineup changes during their brief existence. I know very little about them, to the point the preceding sentences sum up pretty much everything outside of their single release.

The band's only release appears to be 1999's Standing On Ceremony, a shouty blend of emocore, post-punk, and a couple dashes of post-hardcore and emo pop. The result is more easygoing than you'd probably expect. They sound kind of like a more laid back Life at These Speeds. I really enjoy this album, it's surprisingly relaxing for something so obviously rooted in emocore and post-punk (emocore-lite? post-emo-popcore punk?). Sometimes it reminds me of The Van Pelt, though not as focused on spoken word and without as much midwest emo. At other points it's more reminiscent of something like The Lapse.

Standing On Ceremony

Four Wheel Drive

Four Wheel Drive were a band from Essen, Germany, active between 2000 and 2001. They put out two official releases, one on Hometown Caravan and the other on Millipede, and a self-released demo tape. That's pretty much all I know about them. They never had a website and their name makes them nigh impossible to Google. I don't even have a photo of them. Though I suspect they were formed in the late 90s, I can't prove it. Musically, they were a combination of pop punk and emocore—think Hot Water Music and you're in the right ballpark.

The band's entire output consists of six songs. Their first release was a demo tape, DLX, but I don't know what year. It could be 2000, or 1999, or even earlier. They followed it up with a three-song self-titled 7" single in July of 2000. In 2001, their last release was a track on the love still has its meaning compilation.

Four Wheel Drive Discography

Albion

 From the city of Cheb in the Czech Republic came Albion, formed in 1996 and active until 2005. According to this blog post and its frustratingly broken download link, the band reformed in the early 2010s with a change in sound. This is supported by the most recent bit of music I can find from them, this 2005 music video for their song 'Different Love.' I don't know when or if the band actually reunited or what they did or didn't record on that occasion, but they were headed in a very mainstream direction after their first—and as far as I can tell, only—LP.

Prior to that, they tried on three different shades of emo. Their first release, a 1998 split 12" with Kevorkian, a hardcore band that shared members with Albion, is emocore with a strong midwest emo influence. On 1999's Mim, the midwest emo would come to dominate, and that 7" is the band's most classically 90s midwest emo release. In 2002 they would put out Synthpathy, one of the more unique takes on the midwest emo sound you'll hear, featuring, as the name implies, a lot of synths. It hints at the indie rock\pop direction the band would thereafter embrace.

Since the latter years of the band's discography are mostly a mystery to the internet, I've focused on their early emo discography. I've included the split 12", the 7", and the album, along with a 2001 compilation track that is pre-synth and sounds like it could have easily fit on the 7".

The compilation track is made available courtesy of How Nothing Feels.

Albion Early Discography