American FootballIt's a glorious time to be a fan of the nebulous genre known as emo. With the recent revival in US of 'fourth-wave' sounds from bands like Into It. Over It., Joie De Vivre, Dowsing, Balance and Composure and The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die harking back to the days of Mineral, Sunny Day Real Estate, Texas Is The Reason and Jawbreaker, the term is steadfastly steering away from being a blanket pejorative to once again actually meaning something.
It is fitting then, that this revival has taken place in tandem with a secondary revival of its own, as defunct purveyors of the second- and early third-wave aesthetic have been reuniting and touring - Sunny Day and Mineral among them, as well as - excitingly - American Football.
One of several projects of the iconoclastic and iconic Mike Kinsella (Cap'n Jazz, Owen, Owls, Joan Of Arc, Their/They're/There), American Football - who drew on math and indie rock influences in addition to their emo fundamentals - shone brightly for three years from 1997 to 2000 before dissipating into the nether, the band themselves not even owning a copy of their cult-like single self-titled LP. So it comes with some sense of gravitas that a deluxe two-disc edition of the beloved 1999 album has just been released and, with it, so too a video for their flagship track, Never Meant, which was released as a single at the same time as the album.
Enough words; enjoy this so-emo-it-hurts clip, 15 years in the making and replete with party-dance scene to the un-party-danciest music ever, and revel in some pre-My-Chemical-Romance-and-co.-appropriation-era goodness.
Alternatively (or in addition), check out previously unreleased track The 7's right here:
