Summerbruise Find Humour in Heartache on 'Infinity Guise'

On Summerbruise's 'Infinity Guise', the Indianapolis “fake emo” collective turns its mix of gallows humor and Midwest sincerity into a record that feels both personal and strangely universal. It’s their best work yet, not because it reinvents the wheel, but because it leans harder than ever into what they’ve always done best, being funny, being sad, and being both at once.

The album kicks off with 'Making It Worse', a tongue in cheek statement that does exactly what it says. Summerbruise’s bread and butter has always been weaving inside jokes into gut punch narratives, and here they sound like a band unafraid to laugh at their own breakdown. That balance runs through the whole album, somewhere between Hot Mulligan’s shout along angst and the ironic tenderness of Modern Baseball.

The standout moment comes with 'Cookie Monster Snapback', featuring Tades Sanville of Hot Mulligan. What started as a half joking Dave Matthews parody morphed into one of the most powerful songs in their catalog. Lyrically, it breaks the band’s mold, instead of Newman’s diary entries, we get a story about a student shaped by toxic masculinity, giving the song a punch that feels eerily current. Pair that with Sanville’s signature vocals, and you’ve got a track destined for both basement singalongs and TikTok emo edits.

But don’t let the humour fool you, 'Infinity Guise' is also a meditation on mortality. Newman’s fear of death, rooted in the losses that shadowed early releases like 'Bummer Vacation', permeates the record. It’s most palpable on 'Sad Gimmick', where the joke is barely a mask for exhaustion, and on closer 'Was The Grink There?', which feels less like an ending than a shrug at existence itself.

Produced by Nick Starrantino at Deadend Studio, the album sounds crisp without losing its DIY bite. This is also the first true outing for “Summerbruise 2.0”, with drummer Stanli Fryman, bassist John Parkison, and guitarists Mitch Gulish and Cora Kunda stepping up as equal creative partners.

'Infinity Guise' doesn’t reinvent Midwest emo, and it doesn’t need to. Instead, it’s proof that sincerity and sarcasm can live in the album and mix well together, that grief can coexist with a punchline, and that Summerbruise are more than just scene jokesters. They’re writing the soundtrack for anyone who’s ever cried at a meme and laughed at a funeral.