First of all, hi and welcome to the first post of my new newsletter, Unhappy Place! I’m Andrew Sacher, former longtime editor of BrooklynVegan, where I worked for the past 16 years until the site’s mass layoffs, and author of the upcoming book EMO REVIVAL, which is coming out September 8 via CLASH Books. (Pre-order it now.)
If you know me, then you know BV was a truly massive part of my life. I can’t put into words how sad I am that that era has come to an end, but I love writing about music too much to do anything besides get right back to it. I’ll be using this newsletter to write as much as I can about punk, emo, hardcore, indie, and more (with “more” probably ranging from metal to rap to pop and beyond), and that will include album reviews, essays, interviews, and recommendation lists, as well as bonus content related to my book. The name Unhappy Place is a reference to one of the chapters of my book, and it’s also just a cheeky emo name.
If you were a BV reader, you may have already encountered my writing within the two columns I launched— the multi-genre album reviews column Notable Releases that I started in 2016 and the punk/emo column In Defense of the Genre that I started in 2020—and if you liked what I’ve written over the years, particularly in the punk, emo, hardcore, and indie realms, I think you might like what I’ll be writing about here.
Alright, less talk, more rock. This first post will open with some thoughts on Citizen and their excellent new album Halcyon Blues, out now on Run For Cover, followed by two other records I highly recommend.
I’m feeling extra sentimental about Citizen during this massive shake-up in my own life, as Citizen are a band whose timeline has been sort of similar to mine as a writer. They released their first demo in 2009, the same year I started putting all my energy towards finding a job in the music world. I remember hearing their 2011 Young States EP as I was getting my footing at BV and thinking “these guys kinda sound like Title Fight… pretty good!” I remember hearing “The Summer” off their 2013 debut album Youth and thinking it was an absolute anthem.
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