Waking Ashland

We probably won’t be so lucky, but if emo were to finally die this year, Waking Ashland would be its ideal swan song. The San Diego band’s debut full-length, Composure, is an ironically titled play list of earnest, dramatic cries for help and bleeding-heart Dear Jane letters — the kind of tightly structured, highly melodic rock that could make any get-up kid swoon. But instead of the usual dual-guitar-and-candy-synthesizer combo, Waking Ashland heightens the stakes by bringing a piano into the spotlight — and pounding the hell out of it. So even though the music is predictably sweet and the lyrics lame-brained (Autumn brings a song I sing so desperately/These shattered dreams from broken wings of love), when Ashland rolls out the Steinway and gives it a terminal dose of Old Billy Joel, the sound is so epic that, were it truly the dirge at emo’s deathbed, the tired genre would rise, gasp and — with impeccable theatricality — exhale its dying breath, passing on with a rose held limply to its chest.