Braid – ‘No Coast’

I missed emo the first time. High school in Southern California in the early ’00s meant constant exposure to pop- and just-plain-punk: blink-182, NOFX, Unwritten Law, New Found Glory, and so on. Jimmy Eat World and Saves the Day was as close as I got, until Dashboard Confessional, which pretty much ruined everything. (But I still mostly like!)

A decade or so later, I’ve acquired quite a taste for a well-made emo record, and have dug hard into Rainer Maria, Sunny Day Real Estate and other guitar-playing, feelings-having heroes of the era. I still haven’t listened to Braid’s old stuff, but new release No Coast is everything I want: passionate, high-energy, immaculately recorded and sounds better the louder you play it. It’s $5 on Bandcamp, which is very punk and also very affordable.