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As fourth-wave emo continues to outgrow its underground roots (just yesterday Pitchfork posted an in-depth review of the World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s Billboard-charting debut, Whenever, If Ever), now is a pretty good time to jump in and take a listen to the bands that helped bring the scene to life toward the end of the aughts. I mentioned a handful of those acts in my recent B Side feature on the sound’s revival, but there are plenty I had to leave out—such as 1994!, a two-piece from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The band melds spazzy midwestern emo with AC/DC guitars, creating a scruffy and chaotic style I call gutter-emo. There are plenty of groups in the scene who aspire to create messiness that’s cathartic, but few come close to matching the fury, intensity, and passion of 1994!
FUCK IT by 1994!
