Emo: it’s not a bad word anymore. While I bristle at people saying that we are currently in an “emo revival” (it never really went away, people just weren’t paying attention), there has been a pretty big spike in bands willfully calling themselves emo. One of those bands is Little Big League, whose new song is tagged as #emo on Soundcloud. “Pure Bliss Choices” is a track they contributed to a split with the recently broken up (or wait… ) Ovlov, due out in August on Tiny Engines, a label making quite a name for itself with its releases and stable of artists.
“Pure Bliss Choices” sounds closer to the more pure punk version of emo of bands like The Promise Ring and Rainer Maria. It’s got a little bit of lo-fi to it as well, giving it something of a rambling Pavement feel. All these comparables might heap too much expectations on the song, so let’s focus on what it is: a simple punk song with catchy guitar and emotive vocals, where emotive creates an allusion of relatability instead of being a cheap way of adding pathos. So at least in this case: good emo! Check it out below.
