I know many of you out there don't remember the grunge explosion of the early to middle 90's. After Nirvana's "sudden" success, major labels swooped down on the rain drenched city of Seattle and signed everyone from Soundgarden to Seaweed in hope that maybe their label would find another alternative rock goldmine to strip for all its worth. Well, for every Nirvana success story there was at least 100 other bands that were given a major label contract and had very little success in the mainstream market. These bands were dropped; many broke up and never recovered from their losses.
Ever since the grunge explosion imploded it seemed that every year there was a new musical Mecca somewhere in the United States that was carelessly dubbed the "Next Seattle." From Berkeley, California to Austin, Texas over to Chapel Hill, South Carolina, to even my home stomping ground of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Major rock magazines like Alternative Press and Spin were talking about these "great" bands no one has ever heard of like Green Day, Superchunk, The Cows, and Mineral. However, major labels for the most part learned their lesson from the whole Seattle thing and only picked the most popular bands to join their ranks that would go on to sell millions with very few exceptions. Some bands even actually said "No" to the lucrative contracts and realized they could live fine on their own laurels.
Even though major labels are only taking the best of the best from respective scenes I still hear about this city or that city being the "Next Seattle." The latest of these cities in located on an island, Long Island to be exact. The majors have already made their millions hawking the loud pop songs of Taking Back Sunday and Brand New to a crop of swooped haired sad children with overactive LiveJournal and mopey-eyed Myspace accounts. However there are a quite a few great bands still playing VFW halls and basements on Long Island and even though each band is a little different from the next, they all have a common love of melodic emotional hardcore.
Agent is another excellent addition to the burgeoning Long Island hardcore scene. They do play intricate melodic hardcore akin to Crime in Stereo, Take My Chances, and Capital but also add in some Midwest emo from the earlier part of this century. The lead singer of Agent is a dead ringer for the dude from Braid as he yelps through five tracks about riding bikes, getting sick of the same old same old, and being far away.
Agent is a good band. I have no major complaints and the songs are catchy. They flow through some crazy guitar noodling and then into some fast parts. It's great and refreshing to hear a band remember the days of emo past and then incorporate it with Lifetime's melodic speed. I Wouldn't Trade That for Anything makes me smile, which is a rarity these days. Agent is emo but in a good-natured way. They are also a sweet band you should be listening to no matter what "Next Big Thing" city they are from.
