“It was such a ruthless process. It tore us to f*****g shreds, sewed us back together and tore us again and I know it’s not that serious but it is.”
So reads the end of a mycriesfallondeafears’ Instagram caption, accompanying the release of their self-titled album. Not exactly your average promo post.
The debut full-length release from the Sydney-based band is among the latest in a growing and proudly DIY Australian emo scene (shoutout kitty records & Reasons, who released the album). In mid-2020s so-called Australia, the word ‘emo’ doesn’t evoke smirks and the Skype ‘emo’ emoticon; rather, it conjures intricate and thrashy guitar parts, sincerity, and threats to the integrity of the Goodspace floorboards. Suddenly, deeply emo(tional) posts feel exactly like the right vibe.
Across the album’s eight tracks, shrieked vocals and riffs doomy enough to turn the heads of even the most casual Dopethrone enjoyer keep things varied, but what’s often most striking is the use of samples.
“I’m not sure I understand, could you make that clearer for me?” / “No”.
Opening track ‘Feeling Strange’ is bracketed by fragments of a 1961 interview with an anonymous patient released by the UCLA Department of Psychiatry. The interview is often discussed online in relation to the ethics of mental health research, but here they function as something of a call and response; the resignation of voices interrupted by an archetypal double-kick and ride bell fill, and plenty of screaming.
“What’s supposed to be wrong with you?” / “No doctor has told me.”
On ‘This River Will Flow Forever’, the band noodles over audio from one of the few scenes in Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon’s protagonist opens up about his past. Earlier in the song, we hear reflections from the vocalist’s own past, “I sat on the end of my bed in my undecorated room and felt so remote.”
This structure isn’t necessary on ‘i ate a perc and thought i was batman’, the ostensible single for the album (released originally in late-2024 as part of a split with Fear of Horses). Here, screams incrementally dissolve into sobs and cries, before pivoting into gang vocals that sound almost celebratory, and blast beat drums that would bring tears to Bruce Wayne’s eyes.
It’s because of this that the occasional leap into more melodic singing stands out. Both ‘Kick His Teeth Thru’ and ‘Chemical Burn’ feature refrains that, while venturing into near pop-punk territory in their delivery, feel surprisingly contemporary.
While the best emo tracks are confessional, even profound, the persistent contradiction is that the words themselves can be hard to decipher. Does this make it easier or harder to identify with what’s being said? Often the mood of the music and clear sense of feeling behind the words is enough. On 10-minute album closer ‘The End’, 31 words of lyrics and a steadily rising BPM are all it takes to believe that the Instagram caption wasn’t lying.
Words by Patrick McKenzie