See Through Person deliver mathy post-hardcore on "Pipe Dream" off new EP 'Sun'
Last year, Florida’s See Through Person released their debut EP Chariot, which we described as “raw, noisy, scrappy, Midwest-style emo,” but it sounds like they’ve really grown and expanded their sound for their upcoming sophomore EP Sun, due August 31 via Acrobat Unstable (pre-order on cassette or packaged with Chariot on 12″ vinyl). The EP features Pool Kids‘ Caden Clinton on drums, and one song has guest vocals from Dogleg‘s Alex Stoitsiadis, and judging by lead single “Pipe Dream,” See Through Person sound harder and tighter than they did on Chariot. It’s less “scrappy emo,” and more like The Fall of Troy’s mathy post-hardcore, and See Through Person breathe new life into this sound. The band says:
A lot has happened in the 9 months since our first EP, Chariot came out. I don’t think either of us expected it to go as far as it did and we were definitely experiencing some growing pains and it was starting to feel like we had plateaued. But Acrobat Unstable reaching out and signing to that label really helped solidify our direction as a band and they were able to get us in contact with a lot of great people who were instrumental to this EP like Caden Clinton from Pool Kids who’s drumming on this EP, or Alex Stoitsiadis from Dogleg who’s doing guest vocals on the song “Periwinkle”. The recording process was very seamless too, working with Lon Beshiri in Tallahassee was a blast, we walked into the studio with one idea of how the songs would sound like, and after working with Caden and Lon they definitely went in a different direction than we anticipated but we are very happy with it. More than anything though I’m really grateful to everyone who supported our first EP and created a demand for us to record a second it has lead to opportunities in such a short period of time that we never thought were possible.
Listen to the premiere of “Pipe Dream” right here:
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15 Albums That Shaped Progressive Post-Hardcore in the 2000s
The Mars Volta – De-Loused in the Comatorium (2003)
Coheed & Cambria – In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 (2003)
These Arms Are Snakes – Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home (2004)
The Sound of Animals Fighting – Tiger and the Duke (2005)
The Receiving End of Sirens – Between the Heart and the Synapse (2005)
Gospel – The Moon Is A Cold Dead World (2005)
The Number Twelve Looks Like You – Nuclear. Sad. Nuclear (2005)
The Fall of Troy – Doppelgänger (2005)
Protest The Hero – Kezia (2005)
Fear Before The March of Flames – The Always Open Mouth (2006)
Damiera – M(US)IC (2007)
Circa Survive – On Letting Go (2007)
Dance Gavin Dance – Dance Gavin Dance (2008)
2000s progressive post-hardcore was kind of the result of a bunch of different post-hardcore bands trying their hands at progressive rock all at once. A lot of these bands ended up collaborating and touring together, but it took a few years for this to seem like a coherent subgenre. When the next wave of progressive post-hardcore bands cropped up at the turn of the 2010s, they very much had a specific shared sound in mind. That sound got dubbed "swancore," and the person who coined it was Dance Gavin Dance guitarist (and Blue Swan Records founder) Will Swan. Dance Gavin Dance served as the direct bridge between the early 2000s bands and the 2010s bands (many of whom were signed to Blue Swan). They took the influence of a lot of the earlier bands on this list and they bottled it up and stirred it around until it sounded like an accessible blend of just about all of them. Their self-titled sophomore LP is their second album and first with clean vocalist Kurt Travis (who would go on to front A Lot Like Birds and also has a band with The Fall of Troy frontman Thomas Erak, among many other projects), following their 2007 debut with now-controversial vocalist Jonny Craig. Kurt's a real wailer who can sometimes sound like a cross between Anthony Green and Casey Crescenzo, and Will Swan's mind-melting riffage exists somewhere in the middle ground between The Fall of Troy and The Mars Volta. Sometimes prog bands get a little too polished, and DGD definitely flirt with the cleaner side of the genre, but they keep things gnarly thanks to screamer Jon Mess, who clearly learned his screaming chops from '90s screamo and splits vocal duties almost 50/50 with Kurt on this LP. (They also had some guest vocalists on this album, including none other than Deftones frontman Chino Moreno.) When this album first came out, it might've seemed like a product of its influences, but at this point, DGD have become a highly influential (and long-lasting and consistent) band themselves, and this decade-plus-old sophomore LP still holds up.
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