If you pass it on Highway 401, you might not think much of Quinte West.
The city is a two-hour drive east of Toronto and just north of Prince Edward County — not quite the big smoke, not quite cottage country. Together with the neighbouring Belleville, it has a population of about 100,000 people, many of them military members; it has the largest share of army personnel of any census metropolitan area in Canada. The rest of the local economy hinges largely on plants operated by manufacturers like Kellogg's, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.
It's the type of unassuming, working-class place that's become synonymous with emo bands in middle America — small towns and suburbs that tend to be especially rife with dispirited youth looking for a creative outlet for their teenage angst.
Today, one of emo's hottest bands is a group of four kids from Ontario, and Arm's Length may just turn Quinte West into a name that emo fans remember.
In only a couple of years, the band has landed tours with heavy hitters like New Found Glory, earned critical acclaim at home and across the border, and even scored a viral hit on TikTok. Now, they're riding that hype with their debut album, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found (out October 28).
It's been a rapid ascent for this group of 22-and-unders, who started their band the way most kids who grow up in small towns start bands: in their parents' basement. Three army brats who had been transplanted to their new home just in time for high school — singer Allen Steinberg, guitarist Jeremy Whyte and drummer Jeff Whyte — bonded over their shared love of emo and hardcore bands like the Hotelier and Counterparts. Far enough from the hustle and bustle of a major centre of arts and culture, and without much of a local music scene to call their own, they funnelled all the frustrations and anxieties of their upbringing into making their own music.
"We had lots of time to think, and overthink," Steinberg tells Exclaim!
"We didn't have a lot to do in the winter in high school, so we just jammed," Whyte adds.
In 2019, they released What's Mine Is Yours, a four-track EP that epitomized the emo sound as canonized by '90s groups like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate — soft and contemplative but also emotionally explosive. Steinberg had a good feeling about their single "Watercolours," so he went on a boots-on-the-ground mission to spread it by word of mouth on Facebook.
"I was annoying as hell. I slid into everyone's DMs," he says. "We didn't have a music scene in this area, so I was sending it to notable people in Ontario and beyond."
What ultimately made it blow up, though, was TikTok. "It just hit the algorithm," Steinberg says. "It got traction on that godforsaken app, and it's been going strong ever since." The song now has more than a million Spotify streams.
The band followed that with another EP called Everything Nice in 2021, this time teaming up with producer Anton DeLost (Seaway, Bearings), who ran with their "all-bangers" approach and helped give them a huge, full sound that bursts out of the speakers with forceful energy. Their mix of classic emo, supercharged pop-punk and hardcore beatdowns caught the attention not only of Canadian media like Exclaim!, but of major U.S. outlets like Pitchfork and Stereogum — a relatively rare feat for a Canadian band in this oft-snubbed subset of music.
"That press seemed so unattainable, especially for our genre," says Steinberg.
Since then, Arm's Length have repeatedly criss-crossed the US on tour with Knuckle Puck, nothing,nowhere, New Found Glory and others. They added bassist Benjamin Greenblatt, giving some more stability to their rhythm section. And they inked a deal with Wax Bodega, home of other splashy emo bands like Free Throw, Hot Mulligan and Snow Ellet.
Now, Arm's Length have made what might be one of the emo scene's most highly anticipated debut albums in years. Never Before Seen, Never Again Found delivers exactly what it should: a big, emotional blast of guitar rock with soaring, anthemic melodies teeming with melancholy, striking a deft balance of anguish and determination.
The album splits the difference between Arm's Length's first two EPs: the big, fast highs of Everything Nice and the slow, quiet lows of What's Mine Is Yours. The result is a complete effort that shows how much attention they've paid to variety, pacing, structure and melody. "We're happy to say we know how to write choruses now," Steinberg chuckles.
These 11 coming-of-age songs cut to the heart, but they're also laced with darkly wry humour influenced by indie singer-songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers and Field Medic. With urgency and intensity, Steinberg sings about learning how to love, rooting out self-destructive habits and feeling comfortable in your own skin, and he examines the "trauma bond" that people can form out of tragic circumstances, all with an emphasis on empathy, therapy and catharsis.
Every song is made to be played at high volumes in big rooms of young people screaming along to every word. Based on their recent trajectory, that may not be too far away.
"We've been getting the same amount of hype, but not from these apps or the algorithm pushing us," says Steinberg. "We actually have fans now. I think that's the most encouraging thing you can possibly have as a band."
The city is a two-hour drive east of Toronto and just north of Prince Edward County — not quite the big smoke, not quite cottage country. Together with the neighbouring Belleville, it has a population of about 100,000 people, many of them military members; it has the largest share of army personnel of any census metropolitan area in Canada. The rest of the local economy hinges largely on plants operated by manufacturers like Kellogg's, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.
It's the type of unassuming, working-class place that's become synonymous with emo bands in middle America — small towns and suburbs that tend to be especially rife with dispirited youth looking for a creative outlet for their teenage angst.
Today, one of emo's hottest bands is a group of four kids from Ontario, and Arm's Length may just turn Quinte West into a name that emo fans remember.
In only a couple of years, the band has landed tours with heavy hitters like New Found Glory, earned critical acclaim at home and across the border, and even scored a viral hit on TikTok. Now, they're riding that hype with their debut album, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found (out October 28).
It's been a rapid ascent for this group of 22-and-unders, who started their band the way most kids who grow up in small towns start bands: in their parents' basement. Three army brats who had been transplanted to their new home just in time for high school — singer Allen Steinberg, guitarist Jeremy Whyte and drummer Jeff Whyte — bonded over their shared love of emo and hardcore bands like the Hotelier and Counterparts. Far enough from the hustle and bustle of a major centre of arts and culture, and without much of a local music scene to call their own, they funnelled all the frustrations and anxieties of their upbringing into making their own music.
"We had lots of time to think, and overthink," Steinberg tells Exclaim!
"We didn't have a lot to do in the winter in high school, so we just jammed," Whyte adds.
In 2019, they released What's Mine Is Yours, a four-track EP that epitomized the emo sound as canonized by '90s groups like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate — soft and contemplative but also emotionally explosive. Steinberg had a good feeling about their single "Watercolours," so he went on a boots-on-the-ground mission to spread it by word of mouth on Facebook.
"I was annoying as hell. I slid into everyone's DMs," he says. "We didn't have a music scene in this area, so I was sending it to notable people in Ontario and beyond."
What ultimately made it blow up, though, was TikTok. "It just hit the algorithm," Steinberg says. "It got traction on that godforsaken app, and it's been going strong ever since." The song now has more than a million Spotify streams.
The band followed that with another EP called Everything Nice in 2021, this time teaming up with producer Anton DeLost (Seaway, Bearings), who ran with their "all-bangers" approach and helped give them a huge, full sound that bursts out of the speakers with forceful energy. Their mix of classic emo, supercharged pop-punk and hardcore beatdowns caught the attention not only of Canadian media like Exclaim!, but of major U.S. outlets like Pitchfork and Stereogum — a relatively rare feat for a Canadian band in this oft-snubbed subset of music.
"That press seemed so unattainable, especially for our genre," says Steinberg.
Since then, Arm's Length have repeatedly criss-crossed the US on tour with Knuckle Puck, nothing,nowhere, New Found Glory and others. They added bassist Benjamin Greenblatt, giving some more stability to their rhythm section. And they inked a deal with Wax Bodega, home of other splashy emo bands like Free Throw, Hot Mulligan and Snow Ellet.
Now, Arm's Length have made what might be one of the emo scene's most highly anticipated debut albums in years. Never Before Seen, Never Again Found delivers exactly what it should: a big, emotional blast of guitar rock with soaring, anthemic melodies teeming with melancholy, striking a deft balance of anguish and determination.
The album splits the difference between Arm's Length's first two EPs: the big, fast highs of Everything Nice and the slow, quiet lows of What's Mine Is Yours. The result is a complete effort that shows how much attention they've paid to variety, pacing, structure and melody. "We're happy to say we know how to write choruses now," Steinberg chuckles.
These 11 coming-of-age songs cut to the heart, but they're also laced with darkly wry humour influenced by indie singer-songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers and Field Medic. With urgency and intensity, Steinberg sings about learning how to love, rooting out self-destructive habits and feeling comfortable in your own skin, and he examines the "trauma bond" that people can form out of tragic circumstances, all with an emphasis on empathy, therapy and catharsis.
Every song is made to be played at high volumes in big rooms of young people screaming along to every word. Based on their recent trajectory, that may not be too far away.
"We've been getting the same amount of hype, but not from these apps or the algorithm pushing us," says Steinberg. "We actually have fans now. I think that's the most encouraging thing you can possibly have as a band."