THE DISMISSAL OF FINCH AND HOW FANS HALT ARTISTIC GROWTH
“Remember Finch?” mocked the lead singer of Reel Big Fish from the stage of the Boston House of Blues in 2010. Five years prior, Finch, the newly anointed kings of emo, had released their sophomore effort. A year after that, the band had broken up.
How does a band that had such a strong introduction call it quits so quickly? Jason D. Taylor wrote in Allmusic of their debut, “What It Is to Burn is an album that exemplifies everything that is right in the punk scene, from the dejected sadness of emo to the agonizing fury of hardcore, and most importantly in Finch's case, the uplifting tones of pop-punk.”
When their second album Say Hello to Sunshine was released it was also met with a huge response. Of revulsion.
Abandoning their emo fanbase and evolving towards a post-hardcore tone, with vocalist Nate Barcalow following the guidance of his Mike Patton tattoo, Say Hello to Sunshine teases a Faith No More-esque eclectic tracklist and courageous departure in sound. Upon listening, the throng of lip rings and girlfriend jeans shook their crooked bangs ‘no.’ Blair R. Fischer of the Chicago Tribune wrote it “sounds like Finch just got its mitts on a bunch of Incubus B-sides and decided to ruin everyone.”
The album not only caused a divide amongst fans but within the band as well. Subsequent reunions, breakups, and limited studio releases caused their reputation to lose steam. The general consensus is that there was a tug-of-war between the band wanting to reclaim their title of emo/pop-punk darlings and Barcalow wanting to push their sound forward.
Despite Napster and Kazaa being struck down, music piracy was becoming the norm by 2005.
This marked the turning point from buying a physical album, lying back to eagerly listen, and reading the liner notes to find band names you recognize. Now, music is mostly something we keep on in the background to drown out the noise in our heads telling us to buy that pleather jacket in the Wish ad that’s going to show up two and a half months later in cheaper material than you were expecting.
Had Say Hello to Sunshine been released a decade later, could Finch be in a different position? Their colleagues Paramore delivered After Laughter in 2017, well past the Age of MySpace, preventing a knee-jerk reaction that would have banned them from the Warped Tour audience in the early aughts.
Unless they marched out of the gate with 7+ minute-long songs about choking your chicken, established bands are generally not allowed to explore new sounds. The Beatles’ White Album was shredded by critics when it was originally released. Nik Cohn wrote in the New York Times that the album that featured the legendary goddamned “Helter Skelter” was “boring beyond belief.” In our current day, Killswitch Engage has only been playing for two decades and has already had to settle into becoming a legacy act; afraid to upset their fans who already argue enough over which exceptionally capable vocalist they prefer.
Would we have been able to properly say hello to sunshine had Finch released the album under their original moniker Numb, just as Lamb of God did with their covers album? Could we have given it the chance it needed had it not been released during the height of the emo era? You’re an adult now. You chopped off the mop, bought a pair of pants that cover your pubic area, and don’t rip if you take anything more than a half step. You moved on from your record store job after it went out of business. You haven’t logged into your XbeautyXinXtheXbreakdownX MySpace account in over a decade. It’s time to revisit this underappreciated frantic post-hardcore classic.
