Swiss Army Wife, Avec Plaisir & Celebration Guns Reveal “The Ultimate Emo Album”

The Ultimate Emo Album is the first in a new series of split albums featuring rising emo artists on the Really Rad Records roster, this initial volume includes contributions from Portland’s Swiss Army Wife, Montreal’s Avec Plaisir and Phoenix’s Celebration Guns. 

Portland, Oregon’s Swiss Army Wife deliver a particular take on emo with heavy math riffs, gruff vocals and a fun as hell approach. This might seem quaint at a time when most bands are finding ways to distance themselves as much as possible from the hallmarks of the genre. But the band’s debut full-length, Medium Gnarly, is refreshing in its back-to-basics approach, charming in a way that recalls the scrappy early work of now-iconic groups like You Blew It! or Free Throw.

Although they’ve been playing together since 2019, Avec Plaisir really came to life in 2022. With the release of their debut full length, the modestly titled An Album, they built on everything impressive about their Demos for Dave and I Don’t Really Car EPs. Throwing emo, math rock, punk and even flashes of post-rock into a blender, the Montreal foursome have honed their craft.

Celebration Guns are preoccupied with time. It’s clear in the titles of their last two releases, 2020’s On Aging Gracelessly and 2021’s The Visiting Years, and in their song titles such as Something About Hindsight in 2020, Old Man Yells At Cloud, Better Days, The Me That Used to Be. The idea of a focus on time, the passing and wasting of it, isn’t anything new for an emo band. But the members of Celebration Guns aren’t teenagers pining for the good times with their ex, they’re all in their 40s, and they’ve been doing this for over a decade.

The Ultimate Emo Album is now available on CD, Ultimate Emo merch bundles and as a name your price download via Really Rad Records.