Core. Presents: Braid & Hey Mercedes

—the revered Illinois indie-rock band widely considered by many as a pillar of second wave emo, along with similarly influential acts like the The Get Up Kids, the Promise Ring and Jimmy Eat World. But Braid were different; their albums were less overtly poppy and more urgent and frantic than their contemporaries, built on the off-kilter interplay between co-frontmen Bob Nanna and Chris Broach. It was this ever-present tension that drove the band apart barely a year after their genre-defining...