Moneen ARE WE REALLY HAPPY WITH WHO WE ARE RIGHT NOW? (VAGRANT)

Emo is now the trendy rock subcategory that almost no one — not even most emo bands — wants to be associated with. It’s just too easy to mock the slavish herd of fans, with their ironic T-shirts and seemingly omnipresent backpacks, as well as the earnest confessionals the mostly male singers in these outfits prefer. One "emo" band, the Get Up Kids, have even formed an alter ego, Reggie and the Full Effect, to make fun of emo trademarks.

Toronto’s Moneen, on the other hand, benefit from the yearning quality that feeds into emo, and they’re beginning to exhibit subtle shadings as they mature. True to emo convention, the foursome’s two jittery, trebly electric guitars intertwine with scream/sing/whine vocals to form the core while post–Green Day rhythms leap and lope, barely anchoring the frenzy. Instead of structured verse/chorus/verse songwriting, riffs collide in search of a knockout punch. But for all the sound and fury, Moneen’s songs rarely jell. Instead, the band focus on keeping the instrumentation and production complex, with analog synths and piano chords coloring the likes of "The Last Song I Will Ever Want To Sing" and "I Have Never Done Anything for Anyone That Was Not for Me As Well."