From First to Last

Be careful what you ask for. Detractors of the emo scene have complained since guys started wearing girls’ jeans and combing all their hair over their faces for something less wrist-slittingly depressing and overall less, well, emo. Well, here it is: From First to Last, a young band (the members are all just at or under drinking age) that makes a jarring, jagged and brutally harsh foray into a fresh hybrid of nü-metal and eardrum torment with its second Epitaph release, Heroine. Call it screamo, call it scream-core, call it esophagus torture — FFTL dares to alienate its audience with bloodcurdling roars and whiplash time changes, all packed together with a guitar sound so thick it could stop a bullet. And singer Sonny Moore’s commitment to the art of the screech is no joke — the band had to drop off this year’s Warped Tour so Moore could undergo surgery to remove a nodule on his vocal cords. Ouch. With art slag noise-rock gods Every Time I Die and shredder metal revivalists Atreyu also on the bill, expect lots of skinny, cell phone toting fans snapping a glut of grainy photos destined to find their way to MySpace by dawn.