Further Seems Forever

Heart-on-their-sleeves emocore slashers Further Seems Forever cycle through lead singers the way Spinal Tap goes through drummers, albeit not under circumstances involving death by spontaneous self-combustion. The Florida group's original mouthpiece, Chris Carrabba, departed after 1999's The Moon Is Down for sensitive-guy campfire angst under the guise of Dashboard Confessional. Its next heartfelt screamer, Jason Gleason, stuck around only for 2003's How to Start a Fire, but roughed up Carrabba's distinctively angst-ridden phrasing with scratchy melodicism.

Although Gleason's departure reportedly almost caused the band to split, ex-Sense Field frontman Joe Bunch -- himself out of a job when his group broke up in January -- swooped in and saved it from a premature demise. The resulting album, Hide Nothing, shows the union to be a match made in post-hardcore heaven. Bunch's traditionally dulcet vocals rise to new levels of emo urgency on songs like "Light Up Ahead" and "Someone You Know," melding the dramatic heights of his former band with Further Seems Forever's needling chords and post-rock explorations.