V/A - Emo Diaries, Chapter 10 / 2004 Deep Elm Records / 12 Songs / http://www.deepelm.com / Reviewed 27 May 2004

Another year, and the last Emo Diaries has been put out by Deep Elm Records. This time, a host of bands light up the disc with new and innovative takes on the genre, and leave the series on what can only be deemed a high point. While each of the tracks on volume 10 are more than deserving of a paragraph a piece, a few tracks pull themselves above the high bar. Take, for example, England�s The Holiday Plan. On �Projecting Power�, they are as clear sounding and pop-influenced as The MovieLife, The Early November, or any of those other new bastions of the vestiges of emo music. Deep Elm really found in The Holiday Plan a band that was completely sailing underneath the radar, a band talented enough to put practically any band to shame through their rich instrumentation and high energy level. What is an interesting tack for Deep Elm to travel on is the high number of slower-tempo tracks that experiment with time signatures and challenge the traditional corpus of what is accepted (see Sounds Like Violence�s �The Light Is Such a Beautiful Sight� and A Month of Somedays� �A Window�s Pain�.

A Month of Somedays� is interesting also for the extended harmony that they showcase so brilliantly on the Emo Diaries, creating beauty out of different keyed-in singers. Hercules Hercules is the one of the few slightly weak songs on the disc, and that is not for a lack of trying; rather the song is pedestrian, mixing the �new rock revival� of The Strokes and Refused along with Hidden In Plain View to make a track that is only as good as its constituent parts. Following up the Hercules Hercules track is Lukestar�s �Alpine Unit�, which is powered by Morrissey and Noel Gallagher-influenced vocals to spin the term emo into a very introspective, eighties style of matter.

Deep Elm is trying to make this volume of the Emo Diaries both a fin to the series and a bridge to the upcoming This Is Indie Rock. By doing this, the label is treading completely new waters and allowing for the proliferation of different hybrids between emo, indie, and a host of other styles of music. Lost On Purpose�s �Friends� is the perfect example of this desire; an acoustic track furthered by a host of different sounds, both electronic and acoustic, that would really be equally fitting as an ending or a beginning.

Top Tracks: The Holiday Plan�s �Projecting Power� and The Silent Type�s �Jus Primae Noctis�

Rating: 7.7/10