Two Deliverances: First Day Back and My Point of You

On big emo, "Big Emo" and the two most exciting new bands of 2025

Insofar as anyone can be forced to complete a paid piece of writing, my UPROXX editor wouldn’t let me opt out of doing an annual Best Emo Albums list. I felt burnt out, I hadn’t been following the genre all that closely throughout the year and I was worried that I wouldn't be of much use to the reader; either that, or I’d be forced to put Foxing, Los Campesinos! and Glass Beach in there to make word count, despite the fact that they weren’t really emo albums.

He didn’t actually say, “can’t leave emo alone, the game needs you,” just something close to it. But with all due respect to Phil and to my own work, I’d say that emo needs anyone but me at this point. My intro to those lists over the past three or so years has pretty much been the same, wondering what happened to the artistic advances promised by the fifth wave, whether there are just fewer new bands and albums to get excited about or just less excitement to go around in general. Did Your Arms Are My Cocoon level up? Did Carly Cosgrove? Did anyone care about Southtowne Lanes making the closest thing to a Home, Like NoPlace is There-style emo album besides myself and Brooklyn Vegan?

From my vantage point, it’s tough to tell, since the places I occupy (“respectable” online publications, Twitter) are more fractionated than ever, to the degree where Steve and I wonder if even stuff like Japanese Breakfast and Haim have any real juice despite them continuing to play in your local 3000-cap room. What chance did red sun or Ben Quad have in this state of things?

And then I have to ask, what was the last newish emo band to break containment? At least in 2024, it felt like the bands that were getting some heat in the Wax Bodega/Counter Intuitive sphere were actively leading with “RIYL: Mom Jeans.” I couldn’t pretend to be excited about that type of music the first time around and I’d love to read a State of Emo 2025 address from someone who actually was…even if I’d find their taste incredibly suspect (side note, the places that did a lot of that work from, say, 2018-2022 or so, are either toast or have gotten increasingly amateurish).

Then again, this stuff naturally comes in waves and as long as I’ve been a professional music writer, there are years where emo takes the form of stuff that most critical thinkers despise, especially if it’s not popular enough to be a part of the greater “indie conversation.” And then, things recalibrate and you get a moment like right now where people in my sphere are genuinely excited about a couple of very, very new bands because they sound like 1998.