The Action Index

A machine put in my baboon heart
And thanks to my new hip I can walk again
What's so good about being human?
Just a construct-changing definition, for changing boundaries
My iron lung helps me breathe
And this glass eye help keeps up appearances
I'm a technological marvel
I'm a technological marvel

Welcome to The Action Index, today we take a look at the big three in emoviolence

Emoviolence is a subgenre of screamo, which a subgenre of emo… which is a subgenre of hardcore

Yeah I don’t really get it either

Emoviolence is characterized by its short songs, screamed vocals, and use of blast beats– it draws many similarities to grindcore and powerviolence

Florida band combatwoundedveteran blurred the lines between emoviolence and grind

The “big three” in emoviolence is often attributed to Orchid, Jeromes Dream, and Pg.99– all very unique bands with different sounds, but still capture the energy emoviolence demands

Orchid formed in 1998 while the members studied at Hampshire College in Ampherst, Massachusetts

They dropped a couple of demos and splits shortly after their formation, but Chaos Is Me was their first full-length project, released in 1999

As Orchid released more music their sound and lyrical content matured, but overall stayed the same in their short stint

Lyrically, Orchid was very introspective and drew lyrical inspiration from philosophy

This philosophical theme, I believe, peaked on their second album Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow!

This album has a runtime of around 15 minutes, but those will be the most chaotic 15 minutes you will ever hear

A lot of my favorites from Orchid are off this album-- songs like Destination: Blood!, Lights Out, I Am Nietzsche, Victory Is Ours, and ...and the Cat Turned to Smoke

In 2002, Orchid released their final full-length album, colloquially known as Gatefold

Gatefold was experimental (in terms of emoviolence), it had longer songs, lyrics that focussed more on sexuality, and vocals reminiscent of sasscore (whitebelt, fakegrind, hardcore for weird people whatever you want to call it)

In 2005, Orchid dropped a compilation album called Totality, which made listening to some of their deeper cuts and demos a lot more accessible

Including.. The infamous “skull split” with Jeromes Dream

If you have never listened to this split EP, I highly recommend you do so immediately. To my ears, it is the perfect hardcore split EP, nothing but organized chaos, all wrapped up in an 11 minute, skull-shaped vinyl record

Look it up, it is a SKULL SHAPED VINYL RECORD

It is so hard

It is so hard

The Skull Split is sort of a meme in the community, it is extrememly hard to find but it is so cool to look at

I think there's a red version and a glow in the dark version

Anyway, enough talk about cool pieces of plastic, lets get into the next band...

Jeromes Dream is a 3-piece originally from Connecticut, known for their extremely short sets, running around 10 minutes

Why so short? The vocalist/bassist Jeff Smith didn’t use a mic… he just yelled over top of the rest of the band

But that was only on their earlier material, their second album Presents, had a shift in vocal style, going for a more megaphone-announcer-type thing

Why this shift? There are tons of rumors, the most popular being that the vocalist would start coughing up blood because of how hard he was straining his voice, but the band has confirmed that is untrue

Another rumor is that Smith passed out in the studio recording vocals, causing the stylistic shift

The name Jeromes Dream comes from the band's cat named Jerome, and he was having a little dream... I had to add that in somewhere, so might as well add it with the rumors...

Regardless, Jeromes Dream was more experimental with sound than most bands in the scene

Most of their pre-reunion material features a lot of radio signal manipulation and tonnnnnnns of feedback… almost using it as an instrument itself

Reuniting in 2018, the band is working on new material and as of recent (recent as in 2022) have started touring again

For 3 members, Jeromes Dream has a massive sound

Speaking of massive sound, the last band in the trifecta of emoviolence is Pageninetynine out of Richmond, VA

Possibly one of the busiest bands in the scene at the time, Pg99 played over 300 shows in their 5 year stint, nine tours, and a wealth of material, all titled “Document #x”

At the time of their disbandment in 2003, there were 2 vocalists, 3 guitarists, 2 bassists, and a drummer, but some sources say that there were as many as 14 members in their earlier days

Big band skramz!

Pg.99 has a sound that is reminiscent of DC punk, which makes sense, given their location… but imagine if three DC punk bands played all at the same time– that’s Pg.99

Jokes aside, Pg.99 has a unique sound, which I believe is due to having 2 vocalists, you get these back-and-forth and overlapping vocals that really hit heavy in tracks like Your Face off the album Document #8

Pg.99 was also known for the tons of splits they've done with other bands:

Document #2 with Enemy Soil, Document #3 with Reactor No. 7, Document #6 with Process Is Dead, Document #9 with City of Caterpillar, Document #10 with Waifle, (my favorite) Document #12 with Majority Rule (underrated!), and finally Document #13 with Circle Takes the Square

Now I’d like to just say, these bands are my “big three” in emoviolence, you may not agree, and that's 100% okay… genres don’t exist anyway genres are stupid!

With that I'm going to give you some emoviolence reccomendations that I think you should listen to

Again I'm reccomending Combatwoundedveteran, they're sort of like Orchid... but from Florida... if you know what I mean

Another band I reccomend is Geronimostilton, I believe they're a one-person project, but just imagine emoviolence with the gain turned up on everything... including drums

And if you're looking for more "experimental" emoviolence (I don't even know if this would be considered emoviolence given how slow and dark everything is), the band All My Wishes Were Thrown Down A Well And Should Die There is a band I don't see a lot of people talk about... maybe people don't like it? I like it, so I'm gonna reccomend it to you

With that concludes this episode of The Action Index with T-Time

The songs you heard today were Manic. No Depression. by Jeremy Korpas and Sunday Stroll by Huma Huma, all courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library