25 Classic Emo & Post-Hardcore Albums Turning 10 in 2023

January 17, 2023

The crop of bands that made up the emo revival, the new wave of post-hardcore, fourth wave emo, and/or whatever other descriptors you might use to describe the emo-adjacent punk of the 2010s had been growing since the late 2000s, and 2013 was the year that this whole generation of bands was officially too big to ignore. There were classic albums in 2012 that crossed over to new audiences like Title Fight’s Floral Green and The Menzingers’ On the Impossible Past, but by 2013, the music world at large–especially the music press–was officially paying attention to this scene. There are lot of reasons for why it happened this year, but one reason that’s impossible to deny is that 2013 brought a lot of great records from emo and post-hardcore bands, many of which are now rightfully considered classics. Those classic albums all turn 10 this year, and in celebration of their anniversaries, we’re looking back on 25 of the ones we love most. Some of these albums are pop punk, some are shoegaze, some are screamo, and they definitely aren’t all “emo revival,” but they all feel emo and they all helped define the scene/movement that we’re talking about here. 2013 was such a good year that narrowing down to 25 meant leaving off some gems, so if your favorite album isn’t here, leave it in the comments.

Read on for the list, unranked, in alphabetical order. We’ve also got a few of these classics available on color vinyl in the BV shop.

Balance and Composure – The Things We Think We’re Missing
No Sleep

If Balance and Composure’s sophomore album The Things We Think We’re Missing doesn’t sound 10 years old, it might be because bands today are ripping off its mix of emo, post-hardcore and grunge left and right. (It also might be because of the immaculate sound of Will Yip’s production and Brad Wood’s mixing.) Things took everything that was great about Balance’s 2011 debut LP Separation and pushed even harder. The walls of guitars and hook-fueled choruses are bigger, the entire band is tighter, the details are more intricate, and the production is as shiny as Nick Steinhardt’s vivid, colorful artwork. (Nick’s busy 2013 also included designing the art for his own band Touché Amoré’s Is Survived By and Deafheaven’s Sunbather). Balance and Composure may have come from the DIY emo scene, but The Things We Think We’re Missing sounded like the kind of Big Rock Record that would’ve dominated radio and television a decade earlier, and that wasn’t the type of record you’d come by often in 2013–at least not one done this tastefully. They blurred the lines between post-grunge and post-hardcore in a way that managed to be both nostalgia-inducing and innovative, and this record became the new standard for so many bands looking to do a similar thing. B&C followed it with the artsier Light We Made, and broke up a few years after that (vocalist Jon Simmons now makes music as Creeks), leaving Things as the peak of B&C’s post-hardcore era, the culmination of everything they’d been working towards before venturing off into more experimental waters.

Pick up our new exclusive splatter vinyl variant of TTWTWM.

Brave Bird – Maybe You, No One Else Worth It
Count Your Lucky Stars

It was only a matter of time before the ’90s-emo revival of the late 2000s bled into a love of aughts-era emo, and Brave Bird were one of the early adopters of this with their sole LP Maybe You, No One Else Worth It, an album that sounded like the middle of a venn diagram between Some Kind of Cadwallader and Deja Entendu. Hailing from Ann Arbor, Michigan, the short-lived band were Midwest emo in both a literal and figurative sense, with all the noodly guitars, fidgety rhythms, scrappy production, and anxiously yelped vocals needed to qualify, but they also had the melodramatic pop smarts that made the aughts-era bands so widely appealing. In fact, it’s very easy to imagine an alternate version of history where, if Brave Bird didn’t break up, they would’ve become a whole lot more popular. In a sea of bands whose Midwest emo revival often leaned style over substance, Brave Bird really had the impactful songwriting, and this album feels as fresh today as it did then.

Caravels – Lacuna
Topshelf

After a string of EPs and a split with Gifts From Enola, Las Vegas screamo band Caravels unleashed their first and only full-length in 2013 with Lacuna, which remains one of the decade’s true gems. Similar to peers like Touché Amoré and Pianos Become the Teeth, Caravels took clear cues from ’90s screamo but were never content to just sound like a ’90s band. Their interlocking, meandering, and only lightly-distorted guitars made for a backdrop that was warm, spacious, and constantly in motion, and vocalist Mike Roeslein topped it off with hoarse, pained shouts that separated him from dime-a-dozen screamers. It’s an album that’s as creative as it is emotional, and there wasn’t really anything else quite like it. Lacuna was brimming with so much potential that the lack of a followup (save for two songs on a split with Octaves) always made it seem like Caravels had unfinished business, but maybe they had just said all they needed to say. And a decade later, Lacuna holds up as a grand statement.

Citizen

Citizen – Youth
Run For Cover

What do you do after releasing a debut album as instant-classic as Youth? In Citizen’s case, the answer is you just keeping reinventing yourself. That’s led them down the unpredictable path of caustic post-hardcore (2015’s Everybody Is Going to Heaven), poppier alt-rock (2017’s As You Please), dance-punk (2021’s Life In Your Glass World), and first-wave punk revival (2022 single “Bash Out”), and it also means they’ve never made another album like Youth. I’d argue that they’ve made some of their best music in more recent years, but if you want Citizen at their most heart-on-sleeve, their most youthful (no pun intended), and their most full-on emo, you’ll always get that from Youth. From the perfect title to the iconic, Tumblr-friendly floral artwork to the arsenal of singalongs, Youth encapsulated the sound and look and feeling of emo’s then-new wave. This wasn’t “emo revival”; this was emo for a new generation that was coming of age and seeking out fresh, new bands to call their own. From fist-raised anthems like “The Summer” to emo/shoegaze hybrids like “How Does It Feel?” (and Will Yip production), Youth had a firm grasp on where emo was in 2013 and where it was heading. It can feel like such a moment in time–both for the genre and for wherever you were in your personal life in 2013–but these songs also hold up as some of the best of that era.

Cloakroom – Infinity
Run For Cover

Formed by former members of Grown Ups, Native, Stay Ahead of the Weather, and Lion of the North, Cloakroom had emo in their bones even if this project marked a clear shift towards Hum-style shoegaze, and the combined pull of these two forces helped pave the way for an entire decade of emo/shoegaze crossover. On their debut project Infinity (often considered an EP but, at nearly 30 minutes, longer than some of the albums on this list), Cloakroom perfected their new formula right off the bat. Infinity is heavy on mood and hypnosis, with sludgy, atmospheric guitars and distorted basslines played at a snail’s pace, but Doyle Martin’s vocal delivery injected these songs with emotion that owed more to Mineral than My Bloody Valentine. They’d make grander, heavier, and more ambitious music as their career went on, but Infinity still stands tall. It was game-changing and influential right off the bat, and these memorable songs take you right back to that thrilling moment for music.

Comadre

Comadre – Comadre
Vitriol

2013 was a year of new beginnings for many bands in this scene, but there were some bittersweet endings too. Screamo torch-carriers Comadre released their most inventive album to date in January of that year, and announced a breakup just two months later, playing just nine West Coast dates before throwing in the towel. Comadre was never given the treatment it deserves, but it holds up as one of the best and most unique albums of that era. The album found them trading in their standard screamo-style instrumentation for distorted keyboards, trumpets, and gothy baritone backing vocals, all while Juan Gabe delivered his most melodic hooks to date without abandoning his corroded scream. It’s one of the most out-of-the-box screamo albums this side of Circle Takes The Square and City of Caterpillar, and one of the most accessible too. Guitarist Jack Shirley spent the rest of the decade becoming one of the most in-demand producers in punk and metal, working with Deafheaven, Jeff Rosenstock, and many others (and playing in the short-lived Everybody Row), but Comadre remains dormant. Here’s to hoping for a reunion one of these days, because this album deserves another celebration.

Crash of Rhinos – Knots
Big Scary Monsters/Topshelf

“Midwest emo” gets its name because that specific style of emo originated in the Midwestern United States, but it influenced bands all over the world, like UK band Crash of Rhinos, who channelled the Kinsellas and their friends across two albums in the early 2010s. Their second and final LP was Knots, an album that revived a handful of ’90s-era influences without ever sounding like one band in particular. Across its 52-and-a-half minute runtime, Knots channelled everything from Cap’n Jazz’s chaos to Mineral’s expansive post-rocky emo to Hot Water Music’s gritty post-hardcore, and repackaged it as something Crash of Rhinos could call their own. This was undeniably a “revival” of a past era of emo, but it sounded fresh in 2013 and it still sounds fresh ten years later. At this point, mathy guitar noodling and scratchy off-key shouting are just fully ingrained in underground emo’s DNA, but Knots still does those things in a way that stands out from the ever-growing pack.

Drug Church – Paul Walker
No Sleep

As I’m writing this in 2013, Drug Church are bigger than ever and we’re fresh off naming their latest album Hygiene one of the 10 best albums of 2022, but back in 2013, they’d only just released their debut album Paul Walker, and they still seemed like a side project of Self Defense Family vocalist Patrick Kindlon. The Drug Church of Paul Walker is rougher around the edges than the one responsible for super-catchy albums like Hygiene and its beloved predecessor Cheer, but for the most part, they were already doing back then what they’re widely-renowned for doing now. Patrick’s gritty shouts, Nick Cogan’s big, chunky, soaring guitars, and the whole band’s boundless energy makes Paul Walker as infectious as anything Drug Church have ever done.

Foxing

Foxing – The Albatross
Count Your Lucky Stars

With endless ambition and no interest in repeating themselves, Foxing have pushed themselves further and further with each album, constantly defying high expectations and transcending multiple styles of music. And though Foxing have grown so much since releasing their debut album The Albatross, it’s easy to see why so many Foxing fans consider it their favorite. At every Foxing show I’ve ever seen, fan faves from The Albatross like “Rory,” “The Medic,” and “Inuit” are the songs the crowd goes craziest for, which makes sense–these are truly songs that are built to be screamed along to. Conor Murphy’s melodies are among his most memorable, and sentiments like “She says ‘you don’t love me, you just love sex'” and “Why don’t you love me back?” are some of his most widely relatable. Foxing are also not really an emo band, but the emo scene was the first community to embrace them, and The Albatross is the closest they’ve ever come to a straight-up emo album. At the same time, The Albatross is full of moments that hint at the artsier records Foxing would release later on. It’s built on post-rock crescendos, fleshed out by orchestral arrangements, and it finds Conor showing off a wide vocal range that can go from an angelic falsetto a throat-shredding scream. Trying to put Foxing into boxes that they don’t fit into has warped some fans’ expectations of them, but the truth is Foxing always existed in their own lane. Even in 2013, The Albatross was unlike just about every band it was grouped with. It came at the right time and was in the right place to benefit from the rapidly-rising “emo revival,” but even back then, Foxing were just being Foxing.

The Front Bottoms – Talon of the Hawk
Bar/None

The Front Bottoms’ mix of folk punk, pop punk, and emo was never better than it was on Talon of the Hawk. At this point, TFB were like the Violent Femmes for millennials, using a skeletal acoustic setup to churn out driving, youthful, open-hearted punk songs, topped off with a singer that sounded like a cross between Tom DeLonge and John K. Samson. Brian Sella’s nasally, conversational delivery on Talon always made it sound like he was talking directly to you, and with songs as catchy as these, it’s no surprise that TFB inspired an increasingly large number of fans to come to the shows and yell every word right back at them. The arrangements are minimal, but The Front Bottoms made these songs feel huge; listening back now, it feels like a greatest hits.

AGBPOL

A Great Big Pile of Leaves – You’re Always On My Mind
Topshelf

While so many “emo revival” bands were getting their math rock tendencies from the Kinsellas, Brooklyn’s A Great Big Pile of Leaves were channelling the sleek, streamlined math-pop of Minus The Bear, and their 2013 sophomore album You’re Always On My Mind remains one of the best albums in this style not released by MTB themselves. As far as math rock goes, the songs on You’re Always On My Mind are deceptively simple. They cruise along at a relaxed pace, and vocalist Pete Weiland rarely raises his voice above a calm, plainspoken delivery. When so many other emo bands would pen lyrics with an apocalyptic desperation, Pete would sing about going midnight swimming, or finding a mouse in his new apartment. It would risk all seeming a little too silly or too mundane if AGBPOL weren’t coming out with such cleverly catchy songs in the process.

Little Big League – These Are Good People
Tiny Engines

Before Michelle Zauner brought her solo project Japanese Breakfast to the forefront of indie, before authoring the best-selling memoir Crying in H Mart, before Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, she sang and played guitar in the Philly-based, Midwestern-style emo band Little Big League. The band–whose lineup also included former Titus Andronicus member Ian Dykstra and former Strand of Oaks live member Deven Craige–released two albums, an EP, and a split with Ovlov between 2012 and 2014, before Michelle turned her focus towards Japanese Breakfast full time, including their 2013 debut LP These Are Good People. The album quickly gained attention within emo-friendly circles at the time, and listening to it now, it’s not just a fascinating precursor to Japanese Breakfast but a great record in its own right. Even during these humble beginnings, Michelle had the knack for soaring, memorable hooks that would power her biggest Japanese Breakfast singles, and it’s a treat to hear her pairing her voice with noodly emo guitars and raising it at times to a half-scream. It’s a style of music that–as of writing this article–Michelle hasn’t returned to since LBL broke up, and it still holds up as some of her finest work.

Lord Snow – Solitude
Adagio 830

One of the true gems of harsh, raw, ’90s-style screamo released in the 2010s was Solitude, the debut album by Lord Snow (and their only proper full-length until coming back in 2019 with Shadowmarks). Lord Snow were formed by members of Raw Nerve, Suffix, Lautrec, and other bands in the Chicago hardcore and screamo scene (and members went on to form Plague Walker, Stormlight, and more), and they quietly knocked it out of the park on this debut LP. Solitude didn’t reinvent the form, but it did so much justice to this style of screamo that it continues to rival the bands who pioneered this type of music two decades earlier. The 19-and-a-half minute LP is bustling with a restless energy that never lets up, and Steph Maldonado and Niko Zaglaras’s overlapping shrieks add a constant feeling of desperation.

Pity Sex – Feast of Love
Run For Cover

Like their Run For Cover labelmates Cloakroom, Ann Arbor’s Pity Sex came up in the punk/emo scene but played shoegaze, and they were one of the first bands to bridge that gap. But whereas Cloakroom veered sludgy and slowcore-ish, Pity Sex kept the punchy, punkiness of emo going on their debut album Feast of Love, churning out songs that were full of pillowy atmosphere but still had a rhythm section that you could bounce along to. Vocalists Brennan Greaves and Britty Drake both have the soaring, sincere deliveries to tie Feast of Love directly to emo, and Will Yip’s production helped give it that edge too, but they were just as devoted to crafting reverb-coated walls of sound. Feast of Love imitators continue to pop up today, and even in the now-crowded realm of emogaze, this album still stands out as one of the best.

PUP

PUP – PUP
Royal Mountain

Throughout their increasingly good trilogy of 2010s albums, Canada’s PUP paved a path that was wholly their own. Those first three albums found them making a style of music that owed as much to angular post-hardcore as it did to anthemic pop punk. They turned atypical time signatures and discordant melodies into massive singalongs, and as Stefan Babcock grew as both a singer and lyricist, he continued to nail a balance between songs that were painfully personal and widely relatable. That first era of PUP peaked with their masterful 2019 album Morbid Stuff, but the roots were planted with their self-titled debut, which came out on Canada’s Royal Mountain Records in the fall of 2013 (and was then given a wider release on SideOneDummy in 2014). Even if PUP still sounded like they were finding their footing on the debut compared to the next two LPs, they still managed to churn out a handful of anthems on this one; songs like “Guilt Trip,” “Reservoir,” “Dark Days,” and “Lionheart” still hold their own next to future fan faves like “DVP” and “Kids.” Considering PUP improved upon this LP’s formula exponentially since its release, it’s pretty impressive how much it still rips.

Restorations – LP2
SideOneDummy

Not many albums from the early 2010s emo/punk world announced themselves the way Restorations’ LP2 did. As peers of theirs were writing songs that sounded geared towards basement shows, Restorations were already swinging for the fences, with a 90-second buildup of post-rock-infused punk, topped off with a ’70s rock-style guitar solo. And once Jon Loudon’s world-wearied voice finally kicked in, LP2 just kept rising, lending itself to an array of rarely-heard “X meets Y” comparisons. Hot Water Music meets Explosions in the Sky? Planes Mistaken for Stars meets Band of Horses? The Hold Steady meets Torche? Something like that, but mostly, it just sounded like Restorations, who had already tapped into an expansive, emotive version of punk they could call their own.

State Faults – Resonate / Desperate
No Sleep

The early 2010s was a great time for bands mixing dark, heavy screamo with gorgeous post-rock, and one of the best to do it was California’s State Faults with their masterful sophomore album Resonate / Desperate. It was recorded and mixed by Comadre member Jack Shirley, who brought the same glimmering production style to this album that he brought to Deafheaven’s Sunbather that same year. And not only does Resonate / Desperate sound amazing and timeless on a purely technical level, it also features some of the most enduring songwriting of its kind. The music is pummeling yet delicate and full of beauty, the screams are devastating, and the brief instances of clean vocals suggest that State Faults could’ve gone in an emo-pop direction and been just as effective. In a way, they sort of did; State Faults went on hiatus after this album, members formed the more melodic band Slow Bloom, and after traveling down that path for a few years, State Faults came back even heavier on 2019’s Clairvoyant and have maintained cult status ever since. All of that makes Resonate / Desperate a unique entry in State Faults’ discography, a snapshot of a band that was literally bursting at the seams.

State Lines – For the Boats
Tiny Engines

Even before Jade Lilitri achieved critical acclaim as the leader of the indie rock-friendly emo band Oso Oso, the seeds for greatness were being planted in his former band State Lines. The Long Island band was a little more pop punk-oriented than the music Jade is best known for now, but especially on their second and final album For the Boats, they injected an indie rock scrappiness and a folky quality that hinted at the direction of Jade’s future endeavors. And Jade’s knack for great hooks, honest lyricism, and down-to-earth quirks are in full force on this record, just wrapped in a slightly different exterior than they are on the last few Oso Oso LPs. And even if you take it out of its pre-Oso Oso context, For the Boats is just a great indie/emo/punk record that sounds as fresh today as it did the day it was released.

The Story So Far – What You Don’t See
Pure Noise

Named after a New Found Glory song, The Story So Far were always more associated with “defend pop punk” than “emo revival,” and they fared better in places like Warped Tour and Alternative Press than most of the bands this list is about. But TSSF always crossed paths with these bands and continue to do so, and when you zoom out a little bit, they were all coming from similar places and had more in common than they had differences. Like their heroes in New Found Glory, TSSF were hardcore kids embracing the shiny production and sugary melodies of pop punk, and their aggressive background comes across loudly and clearly in the propulsive energy of their beloved sophomore album What You Don’t See. The album’s full of the easily-digestible thrills that made pop punk such a massively popular style of music in the late ’90s and early 2000s, but TSSF eschewed the genre’s juvenile side and used those thrills to write dead-serious songs like the ones on this album. Listening to What You Don’t See a decade later, it stands the test of time and rivals even many of TSSF’s own forebears. It approaches pop punk like an art form, with clever cadences and intricate instrumentals that defy genre clichés. Sam Pura’s production hasn’t aged a bit, and the unfiltered emotion in Parker Cannon’s delivery is as tangible as ever.

Superheaven (fka Daylight) – Jar
Run For Cover

If 2013 saw Balance & Composure perfecting a brand of grunge-infused emo, then that same year saw their Doylestown, PA neighbors Superheaven (then known as Daylight) doing the inverse. Working–as many bands on this list were–with producer Will Yip, Superheaven followed up a run of EPs with their debut full-length Jar, and this was about as straight-up grunge as 2010s emo got. The album title and the aesthetic of their artwork and song titles like “Sponge” were pretty overt grunge-era signifiers, but Superheaven’s retro-ness never felt too on the nose, and unlike many of Superheaven’s own followers, Superheaven never forgot about charisma. They also knew how to get heavy; this was a band whose live show was always a huge part of the appeal, but even listening back to Jar now, and not having seen Superheaven in years (I haven’t caught any of the recent reunion shows), I can still feel all that raw energy coming through.

Title Fight – Spring Songs
Revelation

A year after releasing their landmark album Floral Green, Title Fight kept the momentum going with the Spring Songs EP. Brief as it is–four songs in 12 minutes–it’s just as crucial as any of their full-lengths, and it’s not really like anything else in their discography. Recorded to analog tape with frequent collaborator Will Yip and released on Revelation Records, the legendary hardcore label that’s been home to so many of Title Fight’s biggest influences, Spring Songs had a more stripped-back feel than the lush-sounding Floral Green but marked an evolution in the band’s songwriting. It found them leaning even more into their indie rock and grunge influences without losing the attack of their hardcore roots. Opener “Blush” is one of the best Nirvana songs of the 2010s, and the other three songs find Title Fight channelling shoegaze and slowcore but still within a gritty punk context, without the atmospheric studio wizardry of 2015’s Hyperview. It’s a distinct style that I’ve always wish Title Fight would’ve explored on more than just four songs, but that’s the mark of a great EP; a special release that leaves you wanting more.

Touché Amor�� – Is Survived By
Deathwish Inc

The early 2010s was such an exciting time for this entire scene because just about all of these bands were touring their asses off, inspiring each other in so many different ways, and pushing themselves to write and record better and better music with each new release. That was especially true of Touché Amoré, who came into 2013 with their pivotal split with Pianos Become the Teeth. Touché’s contribution, “Gravity, Metaphorically,” was a four-minute mini epic that marked a more expansive sound than what they’d already perfected on their 2011 scene-classic Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me, but even “Gravity, Metaphorically” couldn’t prepare anyone for the stunning Is Survived By later that year. It was produced by Brad Wood, who’d previously worked on classics like Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary, Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville, and The Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore, but the reason they chose to work with Brad was his work on mewithoutYou‘s Catch For Us The Foxes and Brother, Sister. Like those records did for mewithoutYou, Is Survived By elevated Touché Amoré’s music to a place that transcended the post-hardcore genre entirely. Like those records, Is Survived By sounds absolutely gorgeous, and it still sounds completely timeless today. On this record, the band sounded more dynamic and varied than they ever had previously, and there was more atmosphere in their songs than ever. Even in its fastest, hardest moments, the intricate, interlocking guitars gave Is Survived By a sense of shimmering beauty, like post-rock played at a hardcore band’s pace. And Jeremy Bolm topped it off with some of the most personal, impassioned performances of his career, grappling with topics like his own legacy, writing while happy, and repeating his father’s mistakes in a way that sounded ripped from a diary, or from an intimate conversation with a close friend, but still entirely poetic.

Turnover – Magnolia
Run For Cover

Turnover have always been in a constant state of evolution. If you listen to the double-time pop punk of their 2011 self-titled debut EP and compare it to the psychedelic sophisti-pop of 2022’s Myself In The Way, it’s almost hard to believe you’re listening to the same band, but Turnover have never made any drastic leaps. Each new release inches them in a slightly new direction, picking up where the previous record left off and dropping hints about where they might go next. That’s very much the case when it comes to their first full-length, 2013’s Magnolia. Traces of their pop punk roots echo all throughout Magnolia, but in a much more relaxed, indie rock-friendly way, setting the stage for their masterful emo/dream pop crossover of their 2015 sophomore album Peripheral Vision. With its Will Yip production, Magnolia fit right in with the sound and feel of the era, and Turnover still wore some of their influences on their sleeves with this album but singer/guitarist Austin Getz also really started to find his voice and emerge as the distinct songwriter he’d soon become. Turnover have pretty much phased out all of these songs from their live shows, and it’s not hard to see why, but Magnolia still has its moments and it’s still a crucial stepping stone in the Turnover story.

The Wonder Years – The Greatest Generation
Hopeless

With The Greatest Generation, The Wonder Years pushed pop punk about as far as it could go, transcending the genre without ever abandoning what makes it so uniquely thrilling. I’ve called it the best true-blue pop punk album since Enema of the State, a statement that feels less and less hyperbolic as time goes on. The Greatest Generation didn’t just carry the torch for pop punk after most of the genre’s big names faded away, it redefined it for a new generation. It was their second consecutive album produced by Steve Evetts, and like on 2011’s Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing, Steve and The Wonder Years achieved a near-perfect sound without relying on auto-tune, drum quantizing, or other studio tricks that have been overused in pop punk. It’s an approach that came naturally to The Wonder Years, who have always been an exceptional live band, and The Greatest Generation is a well-produced studio masterpiece that also captures the unhibited energy of their live show. The band is in full force, every little intricate drum fill and lead guitar riff and vocal harmony is perfectly placed and perfectly executed, and the songwriting on this album remains some of the band’s best. Dan Campbell bared his soul as he delivered heart-wrenching musings on mental health and death, turned everyday mundanity into vivid imagery, and sung impossibly catchy melodies at the top of his lungs. The Greatest Generation gives you everything that you want from a pop punk album and more, and The Wonder Years could pull off even the most familiar thrills in a way that sounded like no other band on the planet.

TWIABP

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die – Whenever, If Ever
Topshelf

Whenever, If Ever was The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s first full-length album, but they already felt like veterans of the emo revival scene by then. The Connecticut band formed in 2009, played tons of shows, and put out a decent amount of music across EPs, splits, and other miscellaneous releases before making a full-length, so they were prepared to make a debut LP that was truly monumental, and that’s exactly what Whenever, If Ever was and still is. Throughout these 10 songs, they offer up scrappy ’90s-style emo, towering post-rock crescendos, string and horn arrangements, bloopy synths, throat-shredding post-hardcore, communal gang vocals, casual tales of pissed-off landlords and listening to Rival Schools and mewithoutYou on car rides, and a perennial set-closer that doubles as the band’s unofficial theme song. It’s a masterpiece and a capital-A album, but it also kind of sounds like it could fall apart any second, and in some ways, it did. Original vocalist Thomas Diaz (who sadly passed away in 2018) left TWIABP and current vocalist David Bello joined during the making of this album, and the band’s revolving-door lineup included other members who have since parted ways with the band. But that’s sort of the beauty of TWIABP; you never really know what you’re gonna get, each phase of their career stands out from the others, and each album captures a distinct moment in time.

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A few more really good emo and emo-ish albums from 2013:
Camping In Alaska – Please Be Nice
Chumped – Chumped EP
Defeater – Letters Home
football, etc – Audible
Gillian Carter – Lost Ships Sinking with the Sunset
Have Mercy – The Earth Pushed Back
I Kill Giants – I Kill Giants
Into It. Over It. – Intersections
Iron Chic – The Constant One
Marietta – Summer Death
Radiator Hospital – Something Wild