"mEMOries" Part 15 feat. Walking Race

8 years ago, back on the old site, we did start a series called mEMOries. It was all about asking new Emo-bands or other scene affiliates about their all time favourite (Midwest-)Emo-record. It was about nostalgia. And it was about connecting the new with the old. I had big plans for this series, wanted to collect 20 parts and then release some sort of a sampler with an XL-booklet attached, that features all of the text pieces...

...after 7 parts the series was buried, when the end of borderline fuckup 1.0 was on the horizon. I'm still in love with the idea and tried my best to start a relaunch in 2021, but it mainly was a chore. However, I got back on track somehow, with a lot of support by some lovely people. Now, here's part 15 for your reading pleasure!

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// The band // Walking Race

WALKING RACE is the solo project of Ross from the East Anglian-region of Great Britain. Just a few days short from now, on the 16th of August, he will debut his first song called "Brown and Blue". This song will be part of the "Hold me, I'm boring"-EP, set to be released later this year. In his write-up Ross takes us on his journey to discover Emo-music and the possibly most important Midwest-Emo-record of the 2000s!

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// The record // Empire! Empire! (I was a Lonley State) - What it takes to move forward

Release: 2009 // Label: Count your Lucky Stars

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Ross on "What it takes to move forward" by Empire! Empire! (I was a Lonely State)

Finding a music taste as an adolescent in rural England around the mid 2000's seemed like a losing battle. Pop punk and 'Mallcore' was in and easily accessible on TV and radio and admittedly, some of it did take me but it did feel like a guilty pleasure. My friends and my brother were all metalheads and delving in to obscure Black Metal and genres that I didn't find a connection with at the time. 

I found myself listening to MCR and Less Than Jake and not telling people about it out of fear of being shunned by my friends. Their taste seemed hard-earned, like they were prospecting the old west for the darkest and most extreme blastbeats, growls and pig squeals going. Whereas I found this - in their eyes, condemnable radio-friendly schlock entirely coincedentally. I do still listen to "The Black Parade" once in a blue moon. Call it rose tinted glasses but I enjoy it.

I bought a Warped Tour-album, I think it was '03 and it had "Delirium Trigger" from Coheed and Cambria's first album on it - I felt like I really stumbled on to something with that song. The tension, waltzyness and the realist demo-like production spoke to me. It felt tangible. I needed to find more music like this. Next visit to HMV I sought out more from Coheed. I bought their second album which
I loved but it lacked a lot of the qualities from the first song I heard. It felt a lot more sure of itself which is all good and well but I was after something else. For a long time I tried to find something that matched the rise that "Delirium Trigger" got out of me. It was difficult to put a finger on exactly what it was at the time but I'd know it if it I heard it. 

Some time later, after having a few years without the internet and only being exposed to new music through friends and the radio. I'd been listening to a handful of Math-Rock and Emo bands I found somehow but I felt like I'd missed out on some opportunities to find what I was looking for so I jumped down the rabbit hole on Bandcamp. I found a host of records that resonated with me in no time; "Dancing is Depressing" by Attic Abasement and "Moving to Antarctica" by Tiny Moving Parts to name a couple. Quickly, roads led to "What it takes to move forward" - and I found the sound and feeling I'd been searching for.

From the get go each note moved with trepidation through the opener, the rhythm section giving it a boost of confidence that felt earnest and hard earned. The clincher that made me so sure that this was it was "Keep what you have built up here" - the tension, the waltz, Keith howling the immortal line "I wish I could tear your heart out!" It was like reuniting with an old friend and the album carried on in the same vein. It's one of those records that you just let wash all over you as you get all wistful and dewy-eyed and all it's subtle impurities make it perfect.

I felt eerily akin to it, so much so that I binned off a bunch of songs I'd written because I figured this record had already nailed everything down so perfectly. It ignited something that made me feel both incredibly juvenile and solemnly pensive simultaneously which sounds a pretty obvious thing to say about an Emo record but I guess that's just it, it's just that compelling.

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"mEMOries" Part 1 feat. Mosey Jones
"mEMOries" Part 2 feat. Daniel Becker (Time as a Color Records, Amid the Old Wounds)
"mEMOries" Part 3 feat. Former States 
"mEMOries" Part 4 feat. Edie Quinn (Middle-Man Records, Coma Regalia)
"mEMOries" Part 5 feat. Human Hands 
"mEMOries" Part 6 feat. Alex Miles (Is this Thing on?)
"mEMOries" Part 7 feat. Boys' Club
"mEMOries" Part 8 feat. Keith Latinen (Mt. Oriander, Parting) 
"mEMOries" Part 9 feat. Villain of the War 
"mEMOries" Part 10 feat. John Szuch (Deep Elm Records)
"mEMOries" Part 11 feat. Flight Mode 
"mEMOries" Part 12 feat. Comic Sans
"mEMOries" Part 13 feat. Joe C (What Price Wonderland?, Plaids, Zochor)
"mEMOries" Part 14 feat. Mentah