Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute defined his scene for years to come when he declared his band part of “The New Wave of Post-Hardcore”. He was also joking, but then again, post-hardcore isn’t known for its sense of humor. Despite his claims that he was making a tongue-in-cheek statement, this so-called new wave of friends and scene compatriots were some of the most exciting bands going; Touché Amoré, La Dispute, Defeater, Pianos Become the Teeth, and Make Do and Mend were considered the core, and the already-elastic boundaries stretched to include classicist alt-rock acts like Balance and Composure, melodic punk such as Title Fight and even Into It. Over It., a decidedly non-hardcore singer-songwriter vehicle.

Fans (and writers) ran with the TNOWPH tag, naturally. When “the Wave” became a topic of discussion, we were on the cusp of marking the 10-year anniversaries of genre-defining works such as Thursday’s War All the Time, Glassjaw’s Worship and Tribute and Thrice’s The Artist in the Ambulance. A decade ago, there was a vast chasm between what each of these respective bands conveyed: Geoff Rickly’s hyper-literate emoting and Daryl Palumbo’s macho posturing and Dustin Kensrue’s earnestness-- yet there was peership between them and what they were holding together. Looking at the last year (and change) it’s easy to spot the similarities amid the elite bands of TNOWPH, and how their output will likely inspire similar reverence in the future.

The major commonality, beyond boundary-pushing, is that all these bands have rejected hardcore (and post-hardcore’s) blinkered perspective. They all acknowledge a world outside of hardcore and a showing a willingness to interact with it. Defeater made another uncompromising concept record about a family being destroyed by post-war torment and alcoholism, but took a slot on 2014’s Greatest Generation Tour with the Wonder Years, Modern Baseball, Real Friends and Citizen - the first of the three are widely considered at the forefront of classicist pop-punk, as are Fireworks, the band that replaced Defeater when Derek Archambault’s hip problems finally required surgery and a cancellation of their dates.

Months earlier, in September 2013, Touché Amoré raised the stakes for their peers by releasing the galvanizing Is Survived By, a record that capably shouldered the burdens and pressure of being the great hardcore hope. Since 2011’s Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me, their label Deathwish, Inc. had become 2013’s hottest hardcore imprint, due in large part to the return of Modern Life is War--a band whose influence most clearly manifested in Touché Amoré --and Deafheaven’s Sunbather, an album whose iconic cover art was the handiwork of TA guitarist/graphic designer Nick Steinhardt. Is Survived By was instantly revered an example of a really good band becoming great, and that carried on into 2014. They toured relentlessly with bands ranging from stadium goth-punk act AFI to mewithoutYou to Tigers Jaw to Rise Against. And by playing UK festivals but not the Warped Tour and commemorating the death of Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps with a T-shirt whose proceeds went to the Human Rights Campaign, they maintained their status as one of post-hardcore’s keener ethical barometers.

This had the unintended effect of putting the focus right back on the original author of TNWOPH when La Dispute returned in March of this year with Rooms of the House their first release since 2011’s Widlife. It would be disingenuous to call Rooms “underrated.” Those who did rate it were unsparing in their praise. As for it being “overlooked,” that is par for the course in post-hardcore; TNWOPH is something of a inverse genre, a means of describing not so much what a band is, as what they aren’t, i.e., too studied and serious for punk, not melodic enough for pop-punk, not soft enough for emo, not prog enough to be metalcore. Post-hardcore bands aren’t subject to the ridicule those genres often receive, but there’s no discernible scene or aesthetic code either that makes for devotees. You’d be hard-pressed to find “Defend Post-Hardcore” t-shirts or “Post-Hardcore” DJ nights.