Hawthorne Heights Continue to Make Genre Leading Rock Music for Emocore Fans

4.4 out of 5 stars

Hawthorne Heights has been a pretty big name in the Emocore or Screamo or Emo genre for about 2 decades now, and their new album The Rain Just Follows Me showcases exactly why they are still active and still a big influence in this genre.

They make good music that is enjoyable even if you aren’t a fan of the genre necessarily.

Now, I am not going to say that everyone has to enjoy this style of music or anything, but I think what Hawthorne Heights has always been able to do is achieve an outreach that other bands in this genre are just unable to do because they focus on subject matter that isn’t mature enough for a lot of adults are unable to connect to.

For the majority of the genre, it’s a bunch of heartbroken young people talking about how falling out of love is like death. Hawthorne Heights has their fair share of that as well, but the way they do it is done with a bit more of a mature attitude...or at least that’s how I have always seen it.

I personally never liked whiny songs for the sake of whining.

The title track “The Rain Just Follows Me” is a good example of this concept. The lyrics are actually quite well put together.

Here is a snippet of the chorus:

I know a lot of people will say, “I don’t like the screaming parts,” but I have never had a problem with vocalists screaming as long as it isn’t for the whole song or entire albums. It’s there for a reason. It emphasizes the point being made.

Case in point on the next song, “Holy Coast” the subject matter brings up a much darker element that is meant to be emphasized (screaming in this part):

I would say that this album is pretty much what I expected from Hawthorne Heights, and that’s a good thing, but I also felt like I wanted more in the sense that I didn’t hear anything on this album that truly stood out as far as a great single or a really cool part in any one song that I was like, “Oh, damn, that’s really good.” But that’s never how I felt about Hawthorne Heights to this point. So, I guess that’s consistent.

Good music doesn’t have to have individual pieces of greatness to be good, in my opinion. Some of the best musicians make the worst music, and some of the least impressive musicians still make really good music. I think these guys are somewhere in between there, but more on the scale of “good music” regardless of what independent compositions are put together.

If you like rock music, you will enjoy at least one song from Hawthorne Heights, I think. You may tire of the overall sound of a full album or the full catalog, but it really is a good sound.

If you are angry or frustrated, it is the perfect type of music to listen to in order to release some negative energy.

The mix of clean vocals and screaming and high energy guitars and fast double-bass pedal drumming (in choruses) does get you really hyped up, and makes you want to get up and move, and if that isn’t a real compliment to any musician, then I don’t know what is, because there is a lot of music that has no inspirational actions at all.

Hawthorne Heights rocks, and they will make you want to move your ass around. For that alone, you need to listen to this album.