Rights Reserved - Rights Reserved 12"

Label: Assorted Porkchops
Year: 1996

The Late Bloomer demo (and more specifically the Scout talk) might have opened the floodgates to some mid-90's southeastern emo. Not sure yet, but this Rights Reserved 12" certainly gets the ball rolling in the right direction.
Rights Reserved were in the same little scene as Tonka, Unherd, Cornelius, Assfactor 4, Bedlam Hour, and later Eagle Bravo (next door neighbors to the little scene that had In/Humanity, Antischism, Initial State, Unpersons, and those types). It was a scene based in the college towns of North and South Carolina, that took the O.G.D.C. (Original Gansta District of Columbia...duh) emo sound and started tweaking it. They added noise, spastic freak-outs, math rock stutters, and straight hardcore muscle. Each band was a little different, but they all were pushing their music further out into new territory, each release was better than the last.
In particular, Rights Reserved were specialists in taking punchy, melodic hardcore, and layering on what were new emo stylings of the day; some big dynamics, some messy indie rock (they were from the Research Triangle area after all, so Polvo, Superchunck, Archers Of Loaf, and all them were right there), and luckily none of the squealing, roll-on-the-floor histrionics of some of their contemporaries.
Essential.

DL