Diary by Sunny Day Real Estate

Diary, the debut album from Seattle's Sunny Day Real Estate, came out on Sub Pop on May 10, 1994, with Brad Wood producing. Jeremy Enigk sang and played guitar, Dan Hoerner played guitar too, and the founding rhythm section of Nate Mendel on bass and William Goldsmith on drums held the whole trembling thing together.

What you get is post-hardcore muscle bent toward something raw and confessional: guitars that chime and then detonate, songs like "Seven" and "In Circles" climbing from a murmur to a wounded roar, and Enigk's voice cracking open at the peaks. Critics loved it, and it has since been held up as a cornerstone of emo's second wave, the bridge from post-hardcore to what followed and a key text for Midwest emo, though nobody in the band came from the Midwest. They split soon after cutting LP2, Mendel and Goldsmith decamping to Foo Fighters. A 2009 remaster added two tracks from the 1993 7-inch Thief, Steal Me a Peach.

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