"In Circles" by Sunny Day Real Estate from the album Diary (1994)

The first eight seconds of Dan Hoerner’s screeching guitar riff hangs for what feels like forever until the crushing post-hardcore wave crashes down on your head, revealing “In Circles” as a gentle firestorm of emo bliss and exquisite agony. Released via SubPop in 1994 just as the world successfully commercialized Seattle’s increasingly stale grunge sound, Jeremy Enigk was more Cobain than Vedder and Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary became an instant classic the second late-night MTV viewers saw those little toy figures wandering around in the “Seven” video. But “In Circles” was the real sonic claw in the sides of disenfranchised youth, as Enigk’s back-porch lyrics and punctured drawl hovered over the band’s melodic but forceful noisy swoon. If you’re of a certain age, SDRE was the gateway drug to emo.

_Michael Marotta