Riley!

RILEY! is the kind of band that only could have come from somewhere far off the map – making music shaped by isolation, boredom, anxiety, friendship, and dreaming about what lies beyond the limits of their blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown. Their details may belong to the Rio Grande Valley deep in South Texas, but the feelings amplified through their hyper-modern spin on Midwest emo have carried them around the world, from self-booked headlining tours and bills with genre heavyweights Hot Mulligan, Arm’s Length and Saturdays at Your Place to stages at festivals like Treefort.

Formed in 2018 and named after vocalist/guitarist Ryan Bluhm (they/them)’s beloved cat, Riley! began as a low-stakes creative outlet between Bluhm and bassist Kris Gallardo (he/him): an excuse to write songs, record them in bedroom studios and hit the road on DIY tours. Longtime friend and frequent collaborator Cesar “Izzy” Izaguirre (they/them) joined on drums in 2020, adding a background in punk and hardcore that helped push Riley! into more dynamic territory. What’s followed on albums like 2021’s Already Fucked and 2024’s Keep Your Cool has been a steady transformation from scrappy cult favorite to one of modern emo’s most compelling young bands on the strength of twinkly textures from high-capoed guitars, raucous rhythm section energy and Bluhm’s highly personal storytelling.

Now, Riley! level up once again leveled up on their Pure Noise Records debut, TO LIVE AND DIE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH. Recorded in Austin, TX, alongside producer Phil Odom (Militarie Gun, Say Anything and a protegee of Grammy-winning producer Will Yip), the five-song EP finds Riley! embracing a more finely harnessed sound without losing any of their edge. “We were going for something a little bit more polished,” Bluhm explains. “Not everyone is necessarily into screaming emo music, so we wanted to make things a bit more digestible.”

That range comes into focus from the opening swell of “Roll for Initiative,” bursting in with off-kilter, syncopated energy and a thread of existential dread, while “Another Round of Radical ‘Ritas, Please” (ft. Tades Sanville of Hot Mulligan) zeroes in on the quiet spiral of feeling left out and left behind. Elsewhere, “Two Bucks” finds the band leaning into melody, its high, soaring harmonies bolstered by Eric Egan of Heart Attack Man; “Backseat Bartender,” featuring Gabe Wood of Saturdays at Your Place, taps into classic emo influences, and closer “73 Summers” trades urgency for something more devastating and reflective as Bluhm wrestles with grief, loss and impermanence.

As an openly queer, progressive band in a deeply red state, Riley! have always built their own version of belonging. That spirit runs throughout To Live and Die in the American South, from its very title to the song themselves – deeply personal stories of isolation, connection and the eternal fight to feel seen. Outside the walls of their hometown, though, they’ve built connections that have made survival possible, growing alongside a fanbase that has found itself reflected in every sweat-soaked note as they’ve carved out their own communities.
As Izaguirre puts it, “I feel like nobody really knows if they belong anywhere. That’s what these songs are – just trying to say it out loud.”

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