Midwest Emo Pioneers Boys Life Share First New Music In 29 Years

11:51 AM EDT on October 2, 2025

The reunions just don't stop! Last year Numero Group reissued the tiny but mighty discography of Boys Life, the Kansas City post-hardcore/emo pioneers whose initial run only went from 1994 to 1997. In those few years, the band put out two studio albums including the great Departures And Landfalls, and they also did a handful of split releases with other great bands like Christie Front Drive and Vitreous Humor. They reunited for shows in 2015 and 2024, and today they announced a new EP called Ordinary Wars, their first collection of new music in 29 years. Before it's out in November, its lead single "Ordinary War" is out now.

Inspired by the great reception of those Numero reissues, Boys Life recorded the Ordinary Wars EP with producer Duane Trower (Seasons To Risk, Quitters Club) at Weights And Measures Soundlab, a cozy studio in Kansas City. "Ordinary War" is a bit softer than the stuff Boys Life were making three decades ago, but it still packs a Midwest emo punch. Vocalist/guitarist Brandon Butler explains of the song in a press release:

I think about how short life is a lot. I think we buy into a fantasy that America, money, status, time and titles are real. Those things are really just fabrications in the framework of the American psyche. Our government has failed us. Corporate America owns every facet of our lives. We’re all glued to social media. Cheap dopamine hits scrolling by. Your ideas and feelings use to be the only thing someone couldn’t take from you and now they found a way to take those. America is a business and we all work for the company. If one were to fight a war against these fabrications, one would have to start breaking that framework and value system down. The war would be inside each of us. Denying those forces trying to buy our minds and time. We are a part of something much bigger. So it’s not an ordinary war.

Watch Shawn Brackbill's "Ordinary War" video and see the EP tracklist below.