Moss Icon was an Annapolis, Maryland emocore band from 1986 to 1991. Its original members were singer Jonathan Vance, guitarist Tonie Joy, bassist Monica DiGialleonardo, and drummer Mark Laurence. Moss Icon is best known for its influence on the hardcore punk splinter genre known as "emotive hardcore" or emo, and its affiliation with the original bands formed in the so-called "Revolution Summer" of 1985, including Washington D.C.'s Rites of Sprin...
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Moss Icon was an Annapolis, Maryland emocore band from 1986 to 1991. Its original members were singer Jonathan Vance, guitarist Tonie Joy, bassist Monica DiGialleonardo, and drummer Mark Laurence. Moss Icon is best known for its influence on the hardcore punk splinter genre known as "emotive hardcore" or emo, and its affiliation with the original bands formed in the so-called "Revolution Summer" of 1985, including Washington D.C.'s Rites of Spring and Embrace, and Maryland's The Hated.
The band's identifying characteristics, and those that distinguished them from their contemporaries, included noticeable and abrupt transitions from loud to quiet, Joy's distinct arpeggiated guitar (often undistorted and picked), and Vance's esoteric, sometimes meandering lyrical content. Earlier recordings of the band are reminiscent of early Joy Division, particularly in guitar style, while later songs embodied a less blunt approach, noted by some detractors as making Moss Icon "like Grateful Dead for...
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