PROMISE RING, THE - Nothing Feels Good: 25th Anniversary Edition LP (Blue & White Galaxy Vinyl)

Label: Jade Tree

If there was ever a straw that broke a camel's back, this was it. The kids had their say and, for once, they agreed on something. Everyone from SPIN Magazine to MTV's Matt Pinfield was marveling over this record. The Promise Ring themselves were catapulted from the tiny basement scene into the, erm, bigger basement and club scene. The pioneering band walked the line between brusque sentimentality and uplifting hooks, making them emo's first pop emissaries.

The Promise Ring's landmark sophomore album retains the freewheeling spirit its members, then in their early twenties, imbued it with. Listening to it isn't about being transported back in time to their youth, or yours for that matter—it's about encapsulating all the frenetic, nervous joy that comes with new adulthood. It was the careful intersectional balance on Nothing Feels Good that makes this album one of, if not the defining album of emo's second wave.