Phargo

From: Morgan City, Louisiana

Genre: Emo, Indie, Noise Rock

For Fans Of: Snowing, Nai Harvest, You Blew It!

If there is one thing I have begun to learn about my own tastes, it is that I have a hard time finding many twinkly emo bands I thoroughly enjoy. I find that the style of the genre often gets far too rooted in repetition or show off-y-ness, problems I believe it shares with technical death metal. While I may dislike twinkly emo for the most part I do, however, thoroughly enjoy emo that pushes the boundaries of what the genre is allowed to be. For this exact reason I admire bands like Nai Harvest and You Blew It! who push the envelope a bit, adding their unique twists to the genre, and now, by extension, enjoy Phargo.

While nothing Phargo does is truly groundbreaking, it is at the same time significantly more interesting than many of the bands who rev up their jazz masters and twinkle away while looking sad on stage. Phargo forgoes this route completely, instead opting to layer their sadness under a layer of fuzz, adding a slight noise rock element to their sound. This makes all the difference as they progress through several track of slow to mid tempo sad tunes, making you feel like you belong in some indie movie about an awkward teenager who has problems talking to the opposite sex. Yes, this is truly music that would fit aptly in the earphones of almost any character played by Michael Cera (minus maybe "This Is The End", where we all saw his true colors), and that is not meant as an insult. If you're looking for your next album to dramatically stare at your feet or look out a passenger side car window to, look no further, because Phargo has got you covered.

Free Tunes: https://phargo.bandcamp.com/ 

Black Wine

From: New Jersey
Genre: Psych rock, Punk, Indie, Grunge
For Fans Of: Mudhoney, Jesus Lizard, Dinosaur Jr., Pale Angels (just look at that tie in!)

Seeing as I just posted about a Mikey Erg band, I felt that it was only fair to post another band from a different Erg, Jeff Erg (I'd post Joey's band, but Joey is in The Night Birds, and I'm pretty sure everybody knows them at this point). Black Wine is a unique mix of a lot of different styles, with their truly only consistent quality being a little bit of crunch and fuzz on the guitars. They take influence from the grunge and indie movements in the 90's, and kind of flucuate between those two sounds, often blending them. There is definitely a strong underlying pop punk influence similar to Ergs songs where Jeff did vocals instead of Mikey. Personally, I always loved Jeff's vocals and was really stoked hearing him take much larger of a vocal role in this band. You can't really download any of their stuff off of bandcamp for whatever reason, but they're definitely worth a listen. No idea if they're active or inactive at this point, but let's really hope for active. ("Pushing through the foam" is a fantastic song, and the video for it is highly recommended as a starting point for this band).

Tunes: https://blackwine.bandcamp.com/album/summer-of-indifference

ROMP

From: New Brunswick, NJ
Genre: Indie, punk, pop punk
For fans of: Cayentana, The Sidekicks, Jets to Brazil

ROMP plays a genre that I have an extreme weakness for, and that is catchy, jangly, indie pop/punk that will have you singing along at every possible moment. The songs are catchy, easily stuck in your head, and will have you singing along almost immediately, which really should be the end game of any pop influenced band. The great part is, however, that the songs aren't catchy in the annoying, repetitive way, but rather the kind of catchy that happens when you hear a lyric that makes you think "wow this is relevant to me, I'm going to remember to this", and you do, and then you belt it out in your room/car/wherever you are listening to it, causing odd looks while people try to figure out what's wrong with you. I definitely wouldn't sleep on this bands, as doing so will result in your life being sad and empty without these total jam worthy songs.

Free Tunes: https://rompistight.bandcamp.com/

Makeshift Shelters

Makeshift Shelters are an indie/emo band from Washington, D.C., and wowee. This band blends elements of 90's emo bands such as Texas is the Reason with a healthy amount of pop punk/power pop influence. The resulting sound is something that you can still jam and get a little sad to, but also catch yourself singing along to constantly and could reasonably bounce around to. I really, really love this girl's vocals (like an extreme amount), as they heavily remind me of Chumped. She also just constantly shows an astonishing vocal range and vocal control in general. The nice little synth lines also just add a little extra bouncieness amongst their emo influence. The band definitely has some room to grow, and I am personally extremely excited to see how they will grow as a band and definitely believe they are a band everyone should be keeping an eye on. 

For Fans Of: You Blew it!, Chumped, The Front Bottoms

Tunes (Some free) (That first full length is fire): http://makeshiftshelters.bandcamp.com/