...In Shallow Seas We Sail (studio album) by Emery

From corenfro 01/27/2017 00:50

Emery are an underrated band and quite possibly the greatest emo-hardcore band of all time. The sparring guitar leads over vicious drop tuned guitars cranking out punchy power chords are fantastically hard while always remaining musically substantive, even if at times, dissonant.

The double vocalists provide lovely amount of melody, counter-melody and harmony. Devin and Toby's vocals are a beauty even over the screaming, which is kept to a tolerable minimum.

My main complaint here is there is a bit of power-chord noise and lazy verses and choruses on songs that often have terrific, soaring bridges. The fantastic bridges can take an otherwise mediocre song soaring high. Emery are known for breaking song structure formula (I'm only a man, question), but on this album too many songs have this predictable formula of vanilla verse-chorous then an absolutely fantastic bridge (curbside goodbye, inside our skin, churches and serial killers)

This was my favorite album before I discovered music outside of my mid-2000s emo bubble form High School / Early College. I have probably not listened to it in 5 years and since then I've heard thousands of albums across decades, and classical works spanning centuries. I wanted to revisit it now that I'm a Certified Real(TM) music critic to see how it holds up, and it certainly does in many places. I could see how many "critics" would dismiss it as a period piece installment in a forgettable genre, but there's too much quality content and nostalgia for Emery to completely drop out of my life.