Hey! Let’s talk.
Ok, back in 2003 there was this band called Poison the Well. Right now we’d call them screamo, or ~post-hardcore~, or whatever, but in 2003 we called it emotional hardcore (which might be the actual worst, but screamo felt like a loaded word with super negative connotations in 2003–in fact, in my ~scene~ it was only used for derision).
So they released this album on Atlantic Records, and it was on the endcap at Target, and I bought it with my allowance, and I listened to it a lot. And here’s why it matters: it was produced by the same guy (Eskil Lövström) who produced all of those great Refused albums that are super influential on ~post-hardcore~ and other snobby forms of emo/punk/metal/whatever, and it’s got these superb, spacy interstitial bits that were unlike anything I had heard before and they rocked my Slipknot/Misfits-loving mall-goth heart.
Derek Miller from Poison the Well also went on to be 1/2 of Sleigh Bells, so that’s cool, too.
So, anyway, I was on Facebook this morning, and a high school friend reminded me of the Refused, which reminded me of this album, and I fell into a YouTube hole and thought I’d tell you about it. IDK, some of Poison the Well’s songs still sort of hold up… and at the very least they’re a good document of their time.
This has been fun! Let’s do it again soon.
TTYL. 