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The Last Word is Rejoice


New year, new stories to tell.

I've been sitting on this story for a while, but I'm now clear to share it. Mineral is one of the most important bands in the evolution of post-hardcore/emo. Without them, the Promise Ring, Sense Field, Jimmy Eat World, Texas is the Reason, and Braid, you'd probably not know what emo is today.

I decided to not flesh out the band's story in chapter form in Post. There was no doubt this band was influential, but their story arc was a little too similar to Texas is the Reason's and the Promise Ring's. I didn't want to wear my readers down with story after story with the exact same arc: Band gets buzzed about, tours a lot, puts out a great record, and breaks up before they sign with a major label.

Getting the chance to interview Chris Simpson about the Mineral reunion, I wanted to talk about how the tour has gone, instead of what led to it. That story has already been told many times, so I did the post-script, Now What? story.

Since the band is playing Houston and Dallas on this (possibly final) run of dates, I gave the story to the Observer and sister paper, the Houston Press. There are some subtle differences between the two and you can read the Observer article here and you can read the Houston Press article here.

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