Hawthorne Heights

Hawthorne Heights has far more reason to feel angst about their relationships than any of their emo brethren. The Dayton, Ohio-based screamo quintet is at the center of a nasty, public breakup (a litigious split from the notorious label Victory Records) that is still festering years later. In a story that brought the band considerable bad publicity, the label told street-team volunteers to sabotage a Ne-Yo album released the same day as Hawthorne Heights’ sophomore effort, allegedly authorizing the mayhem without the band’s consent. Hawthorne Heights comes to Milwaukee just a month after its first non-Victory release, and it’s their first album since their debut that doesn’t carry the weight of the awfulness of life. If 2006’s If Only You Were Lonely was marred by overaggressive business tactics, its 2008 follow-up, Fragile Future, was more tragically cursed by the death of backup screamer Casey Calvert after he accidentally overdosed on prescription medications. The new disc, Skeletons, is an admirable example of a band re-examining itself after tragedy while trying to move beyond it.