Sean Bonnette & Tim Kasher, Veronica Everheart

While the trendier singers of 2000s emo were proudly exerting their right to whine, it’s the man who once dismissed his heart as “the ugliest organ” – Cursive vocalist Tim Kasher – who’s ultimately still around. Across jerky song structures and anxious, self-deprecating rants, the classic Cursive songs stretch Kasher’s words to the point of exhaustion, as though directed against the very anger that energizes their breakneck pace. Kasher’s solo work offers no similar escape, sitting with those sour feelings in somber singer/songwriter gloom. Ideal touring partner: folk punk misanthrope Sean Bonnette, bandleader for AJJ and Kasher’s peer in abrasive self-loathing. – Julian Towers