A few months ago, I was listening to an episode of the podcast "howcaniforget," which holds a series of interviews between the vocalist of Party Hats, Chris Sloan, and other musicians he is close with (the music covered in this podcast is adjacent to emo, screamo, and hardcore, and also exists within the Texas music scene). In this episode, Chris was interviewing Kevin Defranco, who played guitar and did vocals in the Philadelphia screamo band Boy Problems.
About halfway through the episode, Chris and Kevin started nerding out about this band called Audioheart, saying that they paved the way between hardcore, emo music, and twinkly guitar on the east coast. I was intrigued by the way they were describing the band, and went online to see if I could find any of their music. Chris' youtube channel is populated with some good stuff, and I found their 2003 demo uploaded there. I listened to it pretty quickly, and I liked the vocals a lot, but I didn't really return back to it.
Fast forward to this week, I decided to listen to them again and now I am a big fan. On their 2003 demo (the only music of theirs that is on the internet). are 7 tracks, spanning 33 minutes. They are filled with melodic guitar riffs, post-rock-y instrumentals, and extremely nasal vocals that encapsulate a very unique and formative sound.
There isn't much online about Audioheart besides this 2003 Demo (which can also be found on Soulseek if you want to download it).
Their guitarist went on to be in the New Jersey emo band Make Me, which was formed a year after the release of the Audioheart demo. This band had Danny Sgrizzi on vocals (also a member of Boy Problems), Eric Rodriguez on guitar, Greg Mitchels on guitar, and Chris Nagel on bass. Make Me takes the sounds of Audioheart and pushes them to a more violent limit, playing off emoviolence sounds that can be seen in bands like Orchid, pageninetynine, and Majority Rule.
Make Me released a demo titled "2004 Demo," with the tracks "Rubber Sidewalks," "Relax and Adapt," "Let's Go Off on a Tangent," and "Hello Moon." I'm biased towards emoviolence, so I think this demo is great, and doesn't lean too far into harshness. It balances the twinkle present in Audioheart's sound with breakdowns that give space for faster paced vocals, and less open instrumentals. I really enjoy how Make Me mixes a bunch of different approaches. A modern-day comparison to them could be Olth, or Frail Body.
If you want a more grassroots place to start with emo music, this music could be fun.
Listen to the Audioheart demo here: Audioheart - 2003 Demo
Listen to the Make Me Demo here: Make me - 2004 Demo
Listen to howcaniforget here: howcaniforget
Chris' youtube for other good music / live vids : Chris' Youtube
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