When the reference to Pascoli's little boy began to be repeated incessantly among the school desks, my CD player first, then MP3, investigated with cautious fear the American emo of the late nineties, that of Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas is The Reason, Mineral. After all, what was more similar to the concept of a child than these boys, who soon became men, who looked at themselves with such ferocious emotional naivety? Midwest emo, that specific subgenre made up of serpentine intertwined guitar arpeggios and math rock-style drum rhythms, would have arrived later in my life, but I still believe that the recurring theme of the little boy was the ghost that haunted, and perhaps still haunts, Mike Kinsella, leader of American Football who became, more by luck than by will, the greatest exponents of that genre. Sometimes, even, synecdoche.
We spoke to you about the strange, absurd, at times dramatic history of the band from Illinois in 2024 (here is the interview), during the celebratory tour for 25 years since their dazzling debut, the homonymous album which the history written by the fans has retitled LP1. To summarize: having disbanded badly after a record written during university, American Football were rediscovered thanks to the internet when they were now in their 40s, becoming flags of emo on the threshold of 50. Kinsella summarized it for us with less poetry: «We are middle-aged musicians who suddenly became popular by making sad and boring songs».
But the words of Kinsella matter little, who rightly after decades of playing among a thousand projects has clashed a little with the global success of his university band, but emo, and midwest emo, strike precisely because they touch an irrational part of us. Who remains by our side from youth to adulthood. So from that LP1 from 1999 to brand new LP4the group's most adult work, which takes up the themes dear to the band – pain, loss, addiction, depression – and brings that uncertain wobble of adolescence into adulthood, between failed marriages, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts. In which however, this time, we can glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. “I poured myself a glass in the dark, I welcomed death in the dark, I cut my wrists in the dark, I didn't exist in the dark until I found you in the dark”, sings Kinsella in an almost worrying way in the second part of that sonic epic of Bad Moons before his bandmates explode into some of the best instrumental growth in their repertoire.
And whether the good Kinsella wants it or not, who since the 2016 reunion has argued, and often boycotted the band and the pressures of this success with drinks, emo continues to speak today as in the 90s, to kids and adults, precisely because it speaks in a blatantly intimate way about something that in the male universe everyone experiences but few share: emotions. Emo works if you're getting over the end of a relationship, a marriage, a friendship, or any important relationship. This works if you have problems with your parents or your children. With work. Or with alcohol, drugs, various and tormenting addictions. It works in constant and contradictory dialogue with one's own traumas, in conversation with the darkest and most solitary thoughts. And American Football, in almost 30 years of career (half of which was spent not existing), have built – according to them, compromising personal relationships, marriages, mental health – the perfect sound for our most ferocious sadness. They put everything into it. They argued, they took each other, left each other, abandoned each other, like in an emo soap opera that took place far from social media and cameras. But, in the end, even in their own time, they have always given us beautiful music. A space to cry.
LP4, arrives 7 years after the previous one, comes out on the usual label (Polyvinyl) and after a last not exactly flawless tour (those who were at Primavera, like myself, were able to witness the announced collapse of the group during the festival, followed however by an amazing intimate performance in the off-festival, still in the city, but in a club more suited to Kinsella's paranoia), it seems to open the band to a new phase of their existence. A phase where the sound is enriched with structure and texture (thanks to piano, harp, wind instruments, vibraphone), while always remaining faithful to the emotional core of the band. Songs like Bad Moons, No Feelings (with Brendan Yates of Turnstile, one of the long line of musicians – from Hailey Williams to Matty Haley of 1975 – who owe a lot to American Football), Wake Her Up, No Soul to Saveare midwestern emo at its most complete and mature. Beautifully and tragically so close to us, that it pierces our skin and melts into us.
If you are facing the end of a relationship, a marriage, a friendship, or any important relationship, if you have problems with your parents or your children, with work, or with alcohol, drugs, various and tormenting addictions, or if you continue to ruminate in the constant and contradictory dialogue with your own traumas, in the conversation with the darkest and most solitary thoughts, LP4 it's the tight hug you've been waiting for. Thank God, midwest emo (still) exists.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
