Boys Life

Kansas City's Boy's Life were one of very few Midwestern, mid-1990s Emo acts to receive any substantial critical or commercial success. Initially a famously noisy, angular project bound to the Marshall stack and singer Brandon Butler's impassioned, urgent voice, their songs lurched with both scientific accuracy and melodic urgency. Fable has it that in the latter part of their career, Boy's Life's tour van and equipment burned to the ground, an event that ironically led the band to their most exciting chapter. Replacing their Marshall-infected sound with a cleaner, Fender-favored spaciousness, Boy's Life reinvented themselves sonically. Their patient rhythms, jangly, atonal guitars, and Butler's voice brooded outright, making even more effective use of the dynamics for which they were famous. Sadly, this would continue for only a short time before Boy's Life would call it quits altogether.