Orchid and Saetia are both playing shows! Truly, what a time to be alive! The big reunions like those (and other ongoing ones like Jeromes Dream, City of Caterpillar, pageninetynine, and more) make it clear that there’s a lot of interest in screamo right now, but it’s not just because of the reunited vets. The screamo scene is basically always thriving, whether people are paying attention to it or not, and every year is filled with a near-endless amount of great screamo releases. With 2023 coming to a close, I’ve rounded up 10 from this year that I really liked, ranging from veterans to newcomers, from Mexico City to Richmond to Italy, from brief EPs to a scene-capturing 31-band comp. It falls under one hyper-specific subgenre, but even within that realm, there’s a lot of musical diversity here, and I hope–whether you’re deeply immersed in the screamo scene or just screamo-curious–that you find something you like.
Read on for the list…
Dreamwell – In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You
Prosthetic
Dreamwell did not have to go this hard; In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is a post-hardcore triumph that makes its already-great predecessor Modern Grotesque seem like a warm-up in comparison. Throughout an ebbing-and-flowing musical landscape that connects the dots between Botch, Envy, Mineral, and At the Drive-In, Dreamwell deliver a concept album that follows a character with Borderline Personality Disorder navigating an array of internal and external struggles. Vocalist KZ Staska tells these impactful stories through a series of shrieks, speak-shouts, and melodic cleans, all delivered with crippling sincerity.
Jeromes Dream – The Gray In Between
Iodine
With The Gray In Between, one of the most influential screamo bands of all time returns with a record like no other in their catalog. They brought in Loma Prieta’s Sean Leary on guitar and teamed back up with veteran screamo producer Jack Shirley to make the most purely beautiful, widely accessible album of their career without sacrificing any of their usual darkness or fury. The Gray In Between really solidifies Jeromes Dream not just as influential vets but as true lifers who are still making steps forward.
Loma Prieta – Last
Deathwish
Eight years since their last album, and 18 years since their first demo, Loma Prieta returned in 2023 to re-stake their claim as one of the best screamo bands around. Last is basically the platonic ideal of a great screamo album; it’s as raw/harsh as it is majestic/beautiful, and it just totally consumes you. No idea what the implication of the album title is, but let’s hope this isn’t the last we hear from Loma Prieta; we’re lucky to have them still firing on all cylinders after all these years.
New Forms – As Dust Collects
Zegema Beach
I am guilty of using the word “chaotic” in way too many of my screamo reviews, but in my defense, chaos is basically embedded into the DNA of screamo. That said, for a whole list of screamo albums, I’m holding myself to only using it in one of the reviews (#MusicWriterProblems, I know), and the record that it has to be saved for is New Forms’ debut LP As Dust Collects. This whole band, from the screams to the manic drumming to the discordant guitars, is just constantly going off the rails in every direction, yet full of control. It’s also just a blast to listen to; it livens me up every time i click play.
Various Artists – Balladeers, Redefined
Secret Voice
The current wave of underground, DIY screamo has been thriving for a while, and Touché Amoré vocalist Jeremy Bolm’s just-released comp Balladeers, Redefined already feels like it’ll go down as a defining document of this era. It’s got 31 of the best screamo and screamo-adjacent bands around, including Soul Glo, Record Setter, For Your Health, Infant Island, Closer, Massa Nera, Thirdface, Gillian Carter, Lord Snow, Zeta, Frail Hands, Boneflower, Joliette, Crowning, Slow Fire Pistol, and so many more, as well as veterans who continue to make urgent music that doesn’t rest on the laurels of their past work, like the reunited Jeromes Dream, Majority Rule offshoot NØ MAN, Hundreds of AU (ex-You and I, The Assistant, etc), Coma Regalia (ex-kaki.o.badi, ache/emelie, etc), and Terminal Bliss (ex-pg.99, City of Caterpillar). Every band involved came to the comp with a genuinely great song that isn’t available anywhere else, making Balladeers, Redefined not just great curation but also a record that stands tall on its own. In the streaming era, it feels harder and harder to put out a comp that will leave a real impact, and Balladeers, Redefined overcomes that hurdle. It serves as a near-perfect entry point into today’s screamo scene, and it’s just as valuable for anyone who’s already completely immersed in this world.
Portrayal of Guilt – Devil Music
Run For Cover
Portrayal of Guilt’s new record is split into two halves, with technically the same songs on each side. On Side A, PoG do what they do best, blurring the lines between screamo, black metal, noise, goth rock, and more, and coming out with something that’s nearly impossible to describe but immediately recognizable as Portrayal of Guilt. On Side B, they apply their harshly screamed vocals to brooding orchestral arrangements in a way that’s somehow even more unsettling than the overtly metal half of the record. And, crucially, it works.
Snag / Coma Regalia – MMXXIII
Middle-Man Records
Coma Regalia have been staples of the DIY screamo scene for over a decade, and band leader Edie Quinn has been helping shape the genre for even longer than that, and Snag are one of the genre’s most exciting newer bands. On MMXXIII, they’ve come together for a split LP. Both bands adhere the raw, harsh version of screamo pioneered in the ’90s by Ebullition Records and Level Plane bands, and the record is loaded with ear-catching moments that break up all the noise–the slithering instrumental patterns that bookend Snag’s “On the Human Condition,” the gentle guitar arpeggios and awakebutstillinbed guest vocals on Snag’s “A Familiar Feeling,” the rough-yet-soaring clean vocals sprinkled throughout Coma Regalia’s half. Both bands put their own spins on things, and it makes for a record with two distinct halves that go together exceptionally well.
Joliette – Luz de Bengala
Zegema Beach
The best screamo sounds like it’s coming from people who are so genuinely overwhelmed with emotion that screaming out from the pit of your stomach is the only option, and that’s exactly what Mexico City band Joliette does on this year’s Luz de Bangala EP. You don’t need to speak Spanish to feel the unfiltered emotion, and the mix of heavy/beautiful instrumentals only adds to how goosebump-inducing this whole EP is.
Øjne – Sogno #3
Left Hand Label / Dog Knights
It’s been six years since Italian screamo band Øjne released their 2017 debut full-length Prima che tutto bruci, and they returned in 2023 sounding better than ever. Like their earlier material, these six songs (including one featuring Cándido Gálvez of the great Spanish band Viva Belgrado) are steeped in the lush, atmospheric, Italian screamo tradition of forebears like La Quiete and Raein, and the production on this EP–handled by the band’s own Mario Rizzotto (also of Radura)–is bigger and clearer than Øjne have ever sounded. It’s majestic, passionate, and it never settles for choosing between beauty and aggression.
Ostraca – Disaster
Skeletal Lightning / Ingo / I.Corrupt.Records.
Richmond screamo band Ostraca (whose drummer John Crogan is also in the mathcore/sass band .gif from god) made a triumphant return this year with their first album in six years. Disaster favors lengthy songs, and it finds them dishing out highly impassioned screamo, fleshed out by embellishments ranging from soaring post-rock to caustic metal.
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