The Usual

The Usual is a band that hails from Hagerstown, MD. They're part of the large emo scene emerging from the depths of the Hagerstown area along with bands like мища, Vikings!, Perfect Future, and Anaria. These guys are all pretty young -juniors in high school- and have been playing music together since early 2007. They've had a number of releases but have not released anything that really shows their growth musically until recently. "We Missed A Season" is a 6 song ep/cd that they recorded recently in their friends basement. They're limited to 50 copies at 2 dollars a piece and can be obtained directly from the band at their myspace: The Usual. The album goes for a very fast upbeat punk sound that is sometimes even chaotic; with tracks that rarely last over two minutes. The track Mckoy is one that shows the bands diversity in sound with slow soft almost ambient picking that eventually leads up to their normal punk sound. Then there's Virginia Is Not A Fucking Commonwealth -which starts the album- which sort of gauges you for the rest of it and is a fantastic track. I think I'm pretty impressed with how the vocals turned out on this and how they were done. These guys deserve your support so give their album a listen from here and buy one from them!

The Usual-We Missed A Season (2009)