Quick Six: Rise Records Retrospective

Rise Records pretty much took the music industry by storm, and have held on to their place at the top of the indie label totem pole for the better part of a decade. They’re still churning out huge hits like that new Dance Gavin Dance album that we may have mentioned once or twice, the new Of Mice & Men, and an upcoming Silverstein album,among other things. They have also been responsible for monumental hits like The Devil Wears Prada’s Plagues or Attack Attack’s Someday Came Suddenly. In fact, for a little while there around 2010, they had worked out such a foolproof formula of success that a lot of their albums started to sound a bit monotonous (see: aforementioned Attack Attack), but they were still a force to be reckoned with. But despite a few obvious choices and easy money makers, they have always been pushing the envelope and innovating the music scene. In fact, it was generally the lesser known albums that Rise released that went on to be the true gems. And that’s precisely what we’re looking at here; we’re going to take a look at 6 of the lesser known hits from Rise Records on this week’s Quick Six.

First up we have some good ol’ hometown boys from Boston. Boston is fiercely loyal to any band that rises up through its ranks and makes its way to the national stage, and lately Transit has been one of those bands. The band themselves are a huge advocate to that mentality, and subscribe to the age old pop punk mentality of community and friendship, and it seems to have paid off for them big time. In fact, if you were listening closely, you may have heard them played briefly during this year’s Super Bowl. But they are still one of the better kept secrets of Rise Records, though I can’t say for how much longer that will last.

When Rise first announced they had signed a new band named Sharks, I honestly wasn’t too optimistic, I was expecting another semi-generic metalcore band. I can’t remember the last time I was so pleasantly surprised. Sharks could not have been further from that stale definition of metalcore, I can’t really say they were a fresh sound, but in this case, that isn’t a bad thing. They were basically the modern interpretation of The Clash, and I mean that in the most complimentary possible. They weren’t merely a copy, they embodied the sound and a bit of the soul of The Clash. They were a classic British punk band, with that more laid back flair that was still chock full of conviction that was pioneered by The Clash several decades earlier. Since then, there have no been many bands that could elaborate on that sound so perfectly, but here we are. It’s just a shame they didn’t stick around longer.

To be perfectly honest, this was so obscure that I had actually forgotten about these guys, but when I first heard them, they were all I could talk about, and revisiting them was a very pleasant trip down memory lane. They were another one of those incredibly technical, but not over the top complicated post-hardcore bands, sort of like Tides of Man, with an almost Blood Brothers-esq sassiness to the vocals. Today they are compared to A Lot Like Birds, but with a bit less chaos. Less distortion, no screaming, but still with a very progressive, eccentric sound. They very nearly gained some solid footing with In Medias Res, but unfortunately never really made it into the public eye of their respective crowd, which is a real shame, because these guys had some serious talent, and were really pushing the envelope of the post hardcore scene at the time.

These guys are technically called Lead Hands, they changed their name towards the end of their stint as a band, but I refuse to acknowledge them as such. They are Decoder, and to me, they will always be Decoder. They were a quasi-super group of sorts, made up on members of Oceana, VersaEmerge, and Of Machines, and the result was brilliant. They took the dark sort of post-hardcore that Oceana were perfecting, and brought it to the next level. At times atmospheric, at times gritty and heavy, always full of dark tones, and a light, twangy distortion that really made their sound completely unique. I still maintain that these guys are one of the best hidden secrets of the music industry from around 2010. They had a few tours, opening for Emarosa and such, but they broke up entirely too soon. So they left us with one impeccable that is still in my regular rotation.

Alright, so these guys aren’t quite unknown, exactly, but they never quite got to the level they deserved. And it’s the perfect follow up to talking about Decoder. As I said, they played beautifully dark, downtempo post-hardcore, verging on metalcore. They had brilliantly complex, pounding drums, droning guitar parts, and a fascinating dichotomy with the vocals. The clean vocals followed the darkness of the melodies, and the screams were wonderfully imperfect (just like Decoder, naturally). After they split up, Oceana continued on to make a really brilliant indie EP, right around the time Decoder was putting out their full length. From there, the singer went on to form Polyenso, which is yet another style, a more psychedelic indie sound, but equally as fantastic. This band is a true representation of raw talent through all of their incarnations, but Birtheater has become a cult classic in the post-hardcore, and for good reason.

This one is really out of left field. Ever We Fall is an emo band out of Portland, Oregon that was signed to Rise all the way back in 2003. They were one of the bands from the very early days of Rise, when they released the Endura EP. They later went on to leave Rise for Hopeless Records where they released We Are But Human, which garnered them a bit more attention, but again, they never really left semi-obscurity. If you missed these guys the first time around, this would be the perfect time to check them out thanks to that so called “emo revival” that’s going on right now. But despite musical trends, these guys are pure classic, early-2000’s emo, and well worth a listen.