(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

The Rites Of Spring were one of the most important hardcore bands of Washington, of the USA, and of the entire planet during the second half of the 1980s, even though they lasted very little.

Led by the vehement singer Guy Picciotto, Rites Of Spring invented "emocore," a genre in which the frenzy and desperation of punk rock was placed at the service of powerful and unsettling emotions, even romantic and sentimental ones, rather than mere sociopolitical anger.

On Rites Of Spring (Dischord, 1985) the singer shouts himself hoarse explaining his sad and love-struck philosophy like a small-town good boy in Spring, Hain's Point, and Theme; he delivers the agonizing sermon of Drink Deep, and sighs the heartfelt confession of Nudes. For twelve tracks the quartet repeats the same refrain and the same guitar riff, practically without knowing the art of pauses or tempo changes; then suddenly they unveil End On End, a convulsive seven-minute delirium in which all the leader’s tormenting psychoses finally find "sound."

Their only other record was the EP All Through A Life, released two years later, which dealt with the same material but with an anonymous, lifeless sound.

Picciotto would later join another fundamental band, the Fugazi.