Algernon Cadwallader: Trying Not to Have a Thought

"Fans of Algernon Cadwallader during their original run claim lifelong bragging rights for having seen them play a late-2000s basement show with sweaty floors and a fisheye-toting Flickr photographer-and they probably have the blown-out YouTube video to prove it. Across the Northeast, the Philadelphia emo band paid its dues at every VFW hall, youth community center, and dilapidated DIY house that opened its doors."

"In the seven years before they called it quits, Algernon were a refreshingly haphazard and wildly fun live act. The longer the crowd bellowed like a football team to open "Serial Killer Status," the higher scrawny teens flung themselves to "Katie's Conscious"; the faster the drive home through pitch-black suburbs, the stronger the urge to burn a CD for your friends so you could scream "If fucking up feels right/Then fuck it up" together."

Algernon Cadwallader, a Philadelphia emo-revival band, returns with its first new album in 14 years that combines finger-tapped riffs, familiar camaraderie, and new social consciousness. Fans claim lifelong bragging rights for seeing late-2000s basement shows with sweaty floors, fisheye-toting Flickr photographers, and blown-out YouTube videos. The band played VFW halls, youth community centers, and dilapidated DIY houses across the Northeast and built a reputation as a refreshingly haphazard, wildly fun live act. Crowds bellowed to open "Serial Killer Status" and flung themselves to "Katie's Conscious," often burning CDs to sing along. Touring with Joyce Manor in fall 2012 brought the band into larger venues like Cambridge's T.T. the Bear's, performing on raised stages and professional sound systems and appearing poised to break out.

Read at Pitchfork