Bio

Forming the band in 1993 in Long Island’s fertile hardcore scene, Palumbo and Beck were inspired to make music in accordance with the quickly evolving, psychedelic-yet-aggro bands playing lunchtime shows at punk haven CBGBs. After multiple lineup stop-and-starts, the duo expanded to five members for two albums that stand as classics of early-00s post-hardcore: 2000’s debut Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence and 2002’s Worship and Tribute.

They took familiar elements from 90s alternative rock and morphed them into something simultaneously messier and more precise. Beck’s guitars were played more for texture than riffs, while the resulting cacophony was ruled over by the charismatic Palumbo, a frontman who would switch from shrieking fury to crooning mystique at the drop of a hat.