By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, including the thorny emo pop of The April Situation’s self-titled EP and the blitzing hardcore of Scarab’s BURN AFTER LISTENING!
The April Situation – S/T
Genre: Emo-Pop, Indie Rock
Favorite Track: “Honestly”
30 years ago, emo music was a refuge for sensitive kids from hardcore bands to pour out their hearts over softer, less abrasive music. It’s nice to see a ton hasn’t changed. The April Situation comprises members from UK hardcore bands Cruelty, xDELIVERANCEx, and Blood Fury, and their debut EP is out on UK hardcore label The Coming Strife. There’s little hardcore in the band’s sound; instead, think the catchier end of the ‘90s emo spectrum. They’ve mentioned The Get Up Kids as a particular influence, especially on opener and lead single “Endless Threads,” and that influence is clearly felt. It’s not too far from the sound the Kansas City emo legends explored on their RED LETTER DAY EP that bridged the gap between their scrappier, angstier debut and their cleaner, catchier breakthrough album SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT.
There isn’t really anything else on THE APRIL SITUATION quite as pop-forward as the sweet and hooky “Endless Threads,” but admittedly there’s enough variety between these five songs that it’s tough to pick out a single representative sample. On the following “Where Am I Now?” the band takes some cues from Jimmy Eat World’s FUTURES, the kind of song meant to soundtrack a late-night drive to nowhere in particular; the guitar tones and the way the notes sparkle in the empty space certainly call to mind that record’s atmosphere, and structurally it feels indebted to its epics “Polaris” and “23.” “The April Situation,” the song, carries a similar atmosphere, but it leans more into ambience, a four-minute instrumental track punctuated by crackling electronics and fragile strums.
The band goes full EMO DIARIES on the closing “When Winter Passes Here,” chiming riffs stumbling over one another building to a soaring, pained chorus; each note twinkles like a snowflake, and as the song goes on they pick up energy like a snowball rolling down a hill (see, the song is about wintertime…), and when it fizzles out about four minutes in those drones from the title track return. They get progressively louder and more intense over the next five minutes; while it does end up sounding quite pleasant, it doesn’t add much to what’s already a lovely closing track.
The best song on the EP, though, is “Honestly.” While there’s no hardcore punk to be found in The April Situation’s sound, there is a bit of pop-punk, and “Honestly” does it very, very well. The song’s chorus is a fast-paced shoutalong romp, but in the verses they return to the sparer, less colorful mode that defines much of the rest of THE APRIL SITUATION. There’s a bit of everything the band has to offer on “Honestly,” and that chorus is just indelible. Honestly. THE APRIL SITUATION is available through their label’s Bandcamp.
Scarab – BURN AFTER LISTENING
Genre: Hardcore
Favorite Tracks: “Everybody in the Way,” “Ugly”
The second song off Scarab’s eight-track, sub-15-minute new record is called “Animal in Pain,” which is the most succinct possible description of Scarab’s sound: the Philly five-piece sound feral, wounded, desperate. There’s no beauty to be found on BURN AFTER LISTENING, not a single moment to breathe, not a second of singing, no space at all; it’s one of the most claustrophobic, punishing records of 2025. “Think I’m gonna suffocate,” howls vocalist Tyler Mullen on “Everybody in the Way,” a fitting description of the experience of listening through BURN AFTER LISTENING.
That’s one of the less bleak lyrics on the album too, by the way, which is to a song bitter, hateful, and misanthropic. “I hate everything,” he repeats later in the song. “If I could go back in time, I’d kill you when I was nine,” goes a lyric in “Ten Foot Shadow”; “blow your brains out, fade away,” he bellows on “Nail Gun.” This isn’t, however, spite for spite’s sake or the ravings of an edgelord lunatic; Mullen saves the most bile for himself: “You know me, dramatic victim,” he roars at the outset of BURN AFTER LISTENING. He’s “crushed by anxiety” on “Animal in Pain,” and “disconnecting, disappearing” on “Withdrawn,” the song that most starkly lays out the cause for the darkness at the core of the album.
Just shy of two minutes, it’s the longest track on BURN AFTER LISTENING, and it’s among the longest in Scarab’s catalog. “Don’t wanna look at anyone in the face today,” Mullen barks out over the song’s pummeling intro, “I’m just passing through.” For the second verse, the song picks up speed and gets an assist from Blacklisted’s George Hirsch; as the song gets heavier, descending into the pits of hell, DFJ of Boston death metal band Innumerable Forms joins to hasten the decline. He and Mullen trade off shrieks over a breakdown that sounds like a high-speed car accident, and the song ends without warning.
There is another high-profile guest appearance on BURN AFTER LISTENING that bears mentioning; Todd Jones of Nails shows up on a song appropriately titled “Ugly” to trade off lines with Mullen. The song repeats the same verse twice, the second time slowing down before kicking into a breakdown that lands with the force of a wrecking ball. Before the song ends, a voice asks, “Are you having any darker thoughts of hurting people or hurting yourself in terms of addictive behaviors or torturing yourself or other people? Burning things down or blowing things up?” It’s fitting given the way the song sounds like a building being demolished.
It’s also fitting given the track’s lyrical content; despite how brutal it sounds, it’s one of the few tracks on BURN AFTER LISTENING that even suggests a glimmer of hope. “I think it’s time that I gotta change,” Mullen promises himself at the start of the song. The only other song that provides any respite from the crushing darkness is “Animal in Pain,” on which Mullen resolves to “fight back.” If that’s the case, Scarab sounds ready for war. Grab BURN AFTER LISTENING on Bandcamp and break something.
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