CanadianWasteland Archives: Emery/The Western Expanse

Emery was a post-hardcore band from Claremont, California. They are probably most well known for their split with emo giants Jimmy Eat World. I originally came across Emery when I found their sole 7" in a pile of old 45's at an antique store. This was quite the score as the 7" seems to be a fairly rare piece. I was really excited by the material when I first plopped it on to my turntable and it has remained as one of my go to 7"s ever since.

Emery played an intoxicating brand of post hardcore that was driving, repetitive and biting; comparable to bands such as Drive Like Jehu, but yet with their own unique twist. Emery was tight, technical and had a lot of impressive instrumental interplay. This is probably the most controversial opinion I have expressed here yet but, I tend to go for Emery more than Drive Like Jehu when I am looking for some driving hardcore to really pump me up. Emery is in my opinion one of the best unknown and underrated bands in their specific post-hardcore playing field.

Emery only released a few songs in their time together; however they did end up recording an unreleased session that was originally supposed to be released as a 12"; so they luckily have a larger discography than their sparsely populated releases let on. Its a shame that the Emery 12" never got released, I feel like Emery could have easily been a big name judging by the excitement and anticipation I have seen in some HeartattaCk record reviews about the band. The Western Expanse was a similar sounding band with the exact same members as Emery and was active during the same period. I included them in this post as well; most of what I said about Emery also applies to them.

A member of the band requested that I don't post any of the unreleased tracks for these bands as they were not mixed to the bands liking... Maybe we will see these in the future in a better form.

Emery (Released Tracks)

The Western Expanse (Released Tracks)

Emery ST 7" 1995 (9D9 Records)