American Football is a four piece Midwestern Emo Band from Illinois kicking things off in 1997. The band originally consisted of Mike Kinsella on vocals and guitar and bass guitar, Steve Holmes on guitar and keyboards, and Steve Lamos on drums. Nate Kinsella joined the band in 2014 playing bass guitar and doing backing vocals.
The band originally only ran from 1997 to 2000, then essentially went on hiatus until 2014, which they have been active since. It’s not often you see such a short start, a long break, and then coming back and lastings this long.
The band has three full albums, all self titled. Which is another thing you don’t see very often. I haven’t looked too deep as to why they decided to do this, but they did. Their first self titled album is somewhat of a cornerstone for MidWestern Emo. If this is a genre you’ve considered exploring, I highly recommend checking out American Football’s first album, American Football.
The sound of the band does have that hallmark MidWestern Emo sound to it, but there is some Math Rock in the undertones for sure. It’s not 100% dominant, but you can hear it throughout their work.
Since this is the first band rec of the summer, it felt right starting things off with an Emo band. I think Emo is a genre that is misunderstood and gets confused in the more mainstream mind with Pop Punk. These are two very different genres, but both enjoyable for different reasons. However, one thing they both do is scream summer.
Band Rec: American Football is marked with CC0 1.0
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