The kids with black hair and multicolored streaks have moved on, while Emo has stayed behind. Last year, it was said that emo had returned, even though it had never really left, had only nested in the underground. And now, finally, those bands are returning, who had made the music long before this very diffuse genre was accompanied by both hype and hatred. The re-release of American Football’s first and only LP brings us back a milestone from the so-called third-wave-era, coined by influences of indie and math rock. When looking at the bands re-releasing their teenage angst, the trio around Mike Kinsella has always stuck out. American Football were more complex, more atmospherically dense, and – most importantly – not as whiny as other musicians of their time. And ever since their first record had been released in 1998, a persistent cult had started to build up around the 12 tracks, which the American-Football-inheritance consists of, split on an EP and a full record. Or rather: consisted of. Because 15 years after the initial release of »American Football«, Polyvinyl Records is actually surprising us, coming along with demo-takes of well-known tracks, test recordings and unreleased live-recordings. And while the extra-material (released in a deluxe-edition on CD, vinyl or tape) shouldn’t really inspire outsiders to have epiphanies, at least the liner-notes, written by Steven Holmes (guitar and Wurlitzer-piano) should be well informative. Because even though it might be obvious that the seemingly apathetically sung stories of heartbreak are taking place on top of a background that’s anything but musically rudimentary, it’s not as easy to spot that 7/7-rhythms are taking turns with 4/4-signatures, that Steve Reich, Miles Davis and Elliot Smith have all been declared to having inspired this music and that the extravagant guitar-tunings have all been properly written down. It makes the record, which rightfully owns a status of legendariness even outside its original genre, appear in a different light. And while lines like »Honestly, I can’t remember all my teenage feelings/and their meanings« are probably more meaningful to the aging fans now than they were back then, the re-release of this classic introduces the genre to potential newcomers through its most extraordinary representatives.
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