Theemo revival, orfourth wave emo,^[2] was an undergroundemo movement which began in the late 2000s and flourished until the mid-to-late 2010s. The movement began towards the end of the 2000sthird-wave emo, withPennsylvania-based groups such asTigers Jaw,Algernon Cadwallader andSnowing eschewing that era's mainstream sensibilities in favor of influence from 1990sMidwest emo (i.e., second wave emo). At the same time, acts includingTouché Amoré,La Dispute andDefeater drew from 1990s emo and especially its heavier counterparts, such asscreamo andpost-hardcore, as a part of the movementthe Wave.

The movement had become prominent in underground music by the mid-2010s, with influential releases from era-defining groups likeModern Baseball,the Hotelier andJoyce Manor. It also expanded in scope and sonic diversity during this period.Soft grunge was pioneered by such groups asTitle Fight,Basement,Citizen andTurnover, whileState Faults,Birds in Row andPortrayal of Guilt pushed the boundaries of screamo. Fourth-wave emo entered a decline toward the decade's end, as influential bands disbanded or entered periods of hiatus. A fifth-wave of bands began pushing the genre into more experimental territory, often embracingpost-rock; examples includePool Kids,Glass Beach andAwakebutstillinbed.

Bands of the emo revival are predominately influenced by acts from theMidwest emo scene of the 1990s and early 2000s; according toUltimate Guitar staff writer Maria Pro, the terms second-wave emo and Midwest emo are used interchangeably to describe that time period's scene.^[2] Revival bands often display a "DIY sound" and lyrical themes ranging from nostalgia to adulthood.^[3] Pro, however, further writes that the revival only borrowed from the second wave in terms of aesthetics; sonically, it featured a distinct fusion ofmath rock,post-hardcore andpop punk.^[2]

Whilethird wave emo was reaching its commercial peak in the mid-to late 2000s by embracing the sounds of mainstream radio music, fourth-wave emo's forerunners began taking influence from the second-waveMidwest emo scene.^[4] The fourth wave was spearheaded by thePennsylvania-based groupsTigers Jaw,^[4]Glocca Morra,^[5]Snowing andAlgernon Cadwallader and the English bandTTNG.^[6] A 2018Stereogum article cited Algernon Cadwallader's 2008 LPSome Kind Of Cadwallader as the emo revival's watershed release,^[7] while a 2020 article byJunkee called Tigers Jaw's 2008self-titled second album "a true landmark release for the era".^[4] These bands embraced aDIY ethos and reintroducedbasement shows to the emo scene. Under their influence, underground emo scenes formed across the United States in such localities asWest Virginia,Willimantic, Connecticut, andChicago.^[5] Notable fourth-wave acts from the Chicago scene includedInto It. Over It.,CSTVT,Pet Symmetry,Joie de Vivre,Their / They're / There,Lifted Bells,^[8] andDowsing.^[9] Fourth-wave emo had become a fully-realised movement by 2011.^[4] Philadelphia's scene remained prominent throughout the wave, contributing bands such asEveryone Everywhere,Modern Baseball,^[2]Hop Along,^[5]Jank,^[10]Balance and Composure, andmewithoutYou.^[11]

By 2013, the emo revival had become a dominant force in underground music. The year saw high profile by Balance and Composure,Brave Bird,Crash of Rhinos,Foxing,the Front Bottoms,Little Big League andthe World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die.^[12] The same year,Huntsville-basedCamping in Alaska released their debut album,please be nice, which became acult classic with the success of "c u in da ballpit" online.^[13][14]Spin namedthe Hotelier's second albumHome, Like Noplace Is There (2014) as the best album of fourth wave emo, opining that it "made it undeniably clear that the most thoughtful, the most progressive and the most exciting thing in indie right now was happening right here".^[5]

During the movement, various emo bands from the 1990s and early 2000s have reunited for reunion tours or permanent reunionsAmerican Football andthe Get-Up Kids.^[15] Furthermore, through this era, contemporary emo bands maintained a close associated with the hardcore scene and pop punk's ongoingDefend Pop Punk Era, which bore the influence of both hardcore and Midwest emo.^[16] In particular,the Wonder Years,Jeff Rosenstock,Charly Bliss andPUP were prominent acts during emo's fourth wave, who sonically were closer to pop punk.^[5]

Beginning to form in the late 2000s, "the Wave" was a movement of bands reviving 1990s emo, screamo and post-hardcore sounds.^[17][18] The name was originally coined to refer to onlyTouché Amoré,La Dispute,Defeater,Pianos Become the Teeth andMake Do and Mend, however by 2014 had expanded to also include groups Balance and Composure, Into It. Over It. andTitle Fight.^[19] In 2011Alternative Press noted that La Dispute is "at the forefront of a traditional-screamo revival" for their critically acclaimed releaseWildlife,^[20] while a 2014 article byTreble called Touché Amoré "the one band carrying the sound forward in the most interesting ways".^[21] By 2015, many of the original acts in the movement had either gone on hiatus or entered periods of inactivity.^[19]

During the 2010s, the Wave style was influential upon many groups in Australia and the United Kingdom, especially Wales.^[22][23] At this time, the YouTube channel Dreambound was one of the most prominent sources for finding bands, uploading music videos for many prominent bands,^[24] with this era of the genre being named "dreamcore".^[23] Groups in this scene, often embraced elements ofpost-rock, and used cleaner and more commercially accessible production styles than had previously been uncommon in the genre. The most prominent act in dreamcore wasCasey from South Wales,^[23] with Australian bands Vacant Home and Ambleside too gaining international success.^[25][26] In the later years of this scene, bands began decreasing the influence they took from hardcore, when Crooks UK,Holding Absence and Endless Height were instead leaning further into post-rock andshoegaze. This, in addition to Hundredth's switch to shoegaze onRare (2017) and the 2019 disbandment of Casey led to the end of this era.^[23]

One notable segment within fourth wave emo was the sound of soft grunge.^[27][4] Originally coined as the "grunge revival",^[28] soft grunge merges elements of 1990s-styleemo andgrunge.^[29] Acts in the genre often embrace elements from a diverse array of styles includingpop punk,alternative rock,^[30]shoegaze,indie rock andpost-hardcore.^[31] Lyrics in the genre are often emotional, accompanied by a "brooding" vocal style,^[32] often mixed quietly and using slow, "droning" melodies.^[33] Guitar tones are modified usingeffects units, such as the atmospheric effects reverb and delay,^[33] as well as the fuzz effect.^[34] Many bands filmed their music videos using8 mm film.^[34]Uproxx writer Ian Cohen called the genre "the midpoint" betweenStone Temple Pilots's song "Sex Type Thing" (1993) andSunny Day Real Estate's song "In Circles" (1994).^[35]

Soft grunge began when bands from the late 2000shardcore punk scene began making music inspired by 1990s emo and post-hardcore groups likeRival Schools andthe Promise Ring as well as early 1990s alternative rock groups like theSmashing Pumpkins,Soundgarden andAlice in Chains.^[34] In the early 2010s, the first wave of bands in the genre emerged, largely based aroundRun for Cover Records, includingAdventures,Balance and Composure,Basement,Citizen,Pity Sex,Superheaven andTurnover.^[34]Title Fight stood at the forefront of the genre with the success of their 2012 albumFloral Green.^[36] The album was widely influential, inspiring many bands to pursue a similar sound and reshaping Run for Cover into a label renowned for its grunge influence.^[37] Often, albums were produced byWill Yip.^[38] Some groups in this early era of the genre were made up of formereasycore musicians, who shifted their sound into soft grunge. This included Citizen, In This for Fun who became Basement^[29] and Bangerang who became Superheaven.^[39]

Turnover's second albumPeripheral Vision merged the genre with elements ofdream pop^[32] andshoegaze.^[40] The album was widely influential,Movements vocalist Patrick Miranda stated in a 2025 interview that "Every band wanted to sound like Title FightFloral Green. Every local band... until Turnover put outPeripheral Vision and then it was like the whole scene flipped".^[41] That year, many North AmericanDefend Pop Punk Era acts shifted their sound in favor of soft grunge,^[42] becoming one of the most prominent sounds in the pop punk scene during the mid-2010s.^[29]Stereogum writer Ian Cohen described "the sound of popular punk" in the mid-2010s as being a "Warped Tour traditionalism, soft-grunge, emo revival, and indie-leaning pop-punk", particularly citing pop-punk bandthe Wonder Years's tour in support of their albumThe Greatest Generation as being "a time capsule" of the time, due to its openers being the soft grunge band Citizen, emo revival bandModern Baseball and pop-punk band Real Friends.^[43] In 2016, some prominent pioneers of the genre began to shift their sound closer topop rock, particularly Balance and Composure onLight We Made and Basement onPromise Everything,^[40] with Citizen also taking a more commericial sound onAs You Please (2017).^[44] Other acts in the genre from this time includedMajor League,^[45] Movements^[46] andTeenage Wrist.^[47]

In the early 2010s, bands furthering the sound of screamo includedCaravels,Comadre andState Faults,^[12] screamo had become a more international movement; notably spreading to Japan, France, and Sweden with groups includingHeaven in Her Arms,Birds in Row andSuis La Lune, respectively.^[48] In August 2018,Noisey writer Dan Ozzi declared that it was the "Summer of Screamo" in a month-long series documenting screamo acts pushing the genre forward as well as the reunions of seminal bands such asPg. 99,Majority Rule,City of Caterpillar,^[49] andJeromes Dream.^[50] Groups highlighted in this coverage, including Respire,^[51][52] Ostraca,^[53]Portrayal of Guilt,^[54][55][56]Soul Glo,^[57] I Hate Sex,^[58] andInfant Island,^[59][60][61] had generally received positive press from large publications, but were not as widely successful as their predecessors.Noisey also documented that, despite its loss of mainstream popularity and continued hold in North American scenes, particularlyRichmond, Virginia.^[62] Also in 2018,Vein released their debut albumErrorzone to critical acclaim and commercial success, bringing together elements of screamo, hardcore andnu metal.^[63][64][65]

By the middle of the decade many bands had begun experimenting considerably with their sound, creating music less indebted to the 1990s emo bands that defined the fourth wave's early years and instead morphing the style towards what many critics began to call post-emo. As early as 2015,Vice writer Ian Cohen referenced the end of the emo revival and the beginning of the post-emo era with the release ofthe World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die's second albumHarmlessness, whileBrooklynVegan writer Andrew Sacher recalled the same sentiment retrospectively in 2021 aboutFoxing's 2018 third albumNearer My God.^[66][67]

By the end of the decade many of the most influential bands in fourth wave emo had disbanded: Modern Baseball in 2017, Title Fight in 2018 and Balance and Composure in 2019.^[11][68] mewithoutYou originally announced their break in 2019, after a final 2020 tour, however this tour was postponed due toCOVID-19 pandemic and the band eventually broke up in 2022.^[69] Meanwhile other bands who had previously been prolific, such asDefeater andLa Dispute, entered periods of inactivity.^[11]

The underground success of fourth wave emo influenced the rise of theemo rap genre, which received significant mainstream success in the late 2010s with artists likeLil Peep,Lil Uzi Vert andJuice Wrld.^[15] One of the earliest pioneers of this sound was former Tigers Jaw guitarist and vocalist Adam McIlwee, who began the solo projectWicca Phase Springs Eternal and formed the influential emo rap collectiveGothBoiClique.^[70]

Following the revival era in the early 2010s, a number of new bands emerged in the emo genre which have often been grouped into a distinct wave starting from the late 2010s to the early 2020s.^[71]The Ringer writer Ian Cohen states fifth wave emo began as early as 2017 and that these emo groups were influenced by bands such asCrying andthe Brave Little Abacus.^[72] This fifth wave of emo maintained many of the stylistic elements of the revival era, but also began to incorporate sounds from other genres such as jazz and electronic music.^[71] The fifth wave of emo has also been noted for its focus on inclusivity of bands with transgender, queer, female and black artists as well as other artists of color.^[73] Notable fifth-wave artists includeHome Is Where,Dogleg,Glass Beach,Origami Angel,Pool Kids andAwakebutstillinbed.^[71]

In a 2017 article,Spin discussed a wave of "newer darlings" who were reviving the emo revival sound, calling this the "emo revival revival".^[74] By 2024, this title was being attributed to See Through Person andBen Quad on their albumI'm Scared That's All There Is (2022),^[75] and was being used as a self-identifer by Kerosene Heights, to reference their revival of the very early emo revival sound Algernon Cadwallader and Glocca Morra.^[76]

By 2023, remaining fourth waves emo bands like Citizen, the Hotelier, Foxing and the Wonder Years began touring for the tenth anniversaries of their most influential records and receiving renewed critical acclaim.^[77]

By the early 2020s, a second wave of soft grunge had emerged, includingFleshwater andNarrow Head,^[34] who began merging it with shoegaze, pioneering thegrungegaze fusion genre.^[78] Emo revival era soft grunge bands Basement and Superheaven experienced a surge in popularity in the 2020s through viral songs onTikTok. During the emo revival, Superheaven had not been one of the more commercially successful in the genre, however following their TikTok success, their song "Youngest Daughter" (2013) reached number three on theBillboard Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. They, as well as some other soft grunge bands of the era, influenced a new wave ofshoegaze made byGen Z musician, includingQuannnic.^[79]

The term "emo revival" has been the cause of controversy. Numerous artists and journalists have stated that it is not a revival at all and that, as a result of increasing usage of the Internet to discover music, people have stopped paying attention to locale-based underground emo.^[80][81] In 2013, Evan Weiss stated, "It's funny that people are only noticing it now because I feel like that revival has been happening for the last six years [...] It doesn't seem new to me, but if it's new to them, let them enjoy it."^[82]

During the emo revival, music scholars began to consider emo music's relationship to misogyny and sexism.^[83] The emo revival was also notable for revelations of sexual harassment and assault committed by members of emo bands, such asBrand New,^[84] leading to a wider conversation about sexism within emo scenes.^[85]

• Emo
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• Alternative rock genres
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