Last month, the fired-up, hard-rockin’ Pittsburgh emo band Short Fictions released their album Oblivion Will Own Me And Death Alone Will Love Me (Void Filler). It fucking rules. Some vinyl versions of that LP came with a bonus 7″ called There’s A Dark Shadow On The Flames Of The Burning Sun Pt II. That 7″ has two new songs that show a different side of the band, and they’ve now shared those tracks with the general population.

Short Fictions released a 7″ called There’s A Dark Shadow On The Flames Of The Burning Sun Pt. I in 2018, and its two dramatically titled tracks, “I Hate Everything In My Life And I Never Won’t” and “In An Airplane Crash At The Peak Of Mount Kilimanjaro,” don’t sound much like most Short Fictions songs. Instead, those songs are tingly, intense screamo, and they present a kind of alternate version of the band. Five years later, Short Fictions are back in that zone.

On the new songs “Christmas On A Dying Planet” and “Envy The Dead,” Short Fictions are back to making frantic, despairing post-hardcore. The band still rocks hard, and in the second half of “Envy The Dead,” you can hear some of the melodic precision that they can’t quite suppress. Still, it’s a lot of fun to hear a great band rocking out in a different style. Listen to both tracks below.

Oblivion Will Own Me And Death Alone Will Love Me (Void Filler) and the There’s A Dark Shadow On The Flames Of The Burning Sun Pt II 7″ are both out now on Lauren Records.