Orchid

Orchid was a screamo band from Amherst, Massachusetts and is considered one of the pioneers of the genre. They were one of the first "emoviolence" bands, incorporating elements of powerviolence and grindcore into their sound, changing the way that people viewed and enjoyed intense music. Their lyrics dealt with highly personal topics, as well as references to philosophers (such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Theodor Adorno) and elements of European culture. They released three full lengths, as well as several EPs and splits. Their first release and full length, Chaos Is Me, is held as a quintessential record in the genre and a must for any fan of screamo. The band split in 2002, and released a posthumous compilation of hard-to-find tracks in 2005, titled Totality. The members have gone on to form bands like Panthers, Ampere, Wolves and Transistor Transistor. Their vocalist, Will Killingsworth, currently runs Clean Plate Records.

Download Chaos Is Me here.

Download Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow! here.

Download Gatefold here.

Download Totality here.

You can visit Clean Plate Records as well as purchase Totality here.

Sailboats

 

Sailboats was a screamo band from Berkeley, California. They recorded a two song demo in 2003 and played a few shows in California, before shortly coming to an unfortunate end. Some of the members went on to join a band called Loma Prieta (which I'll definitely be posting about as well). Sailboats apparently recorded a full LP, which has never been officially released or heard by anyone outside of the band. The demo has been widely circulated throughout the internet, often seen with two short additional tracks. These third and fourth tracks have been confirmed to not actually be by Sailboats. As short lived as they were, Sailboats wrote one of my all-time favorite screamo songs and it's a shame that they didn't continue writing. I highly recommend them to anyone curious about the genre.

Download the Sailboats demo here.