First Day Back Members, Gear & Sound

First Day Back is a Santa Cruz, California band formed during college, working in the overlap of emo, screamo, post-hardcore, math rock, and midwest emo. While detailed public member credits are limited, the group is best understood as a guitar-driven ensemble built around impassioned vocals, intricate rhythm playing, and the loud-soft dynamics common to modern DIY post-hardcore. Their music pulls together twinkling melodic guitar lines, angular arrangements, and emotionally direct intensity, placing them in a lane that balances technical interplay with raw catharsis.

To get close to First Day Back’s sound, focus on contrast and tension more than sheer heaviness. The guitars should feel bright, articulate, and slightly raw, with clean or lightly broken-up tones for the intricate passages and more saturated distortion when the songs open up into screamo or post-hardcore peaks. In a mix, that means emphasizing interlocking riffs, dynamic shifts, and tight rhythmic stops rather than dense walls of sound. Drums should be nimble and expressive, able to move from delicate, mathy patterns into forceful crashes without losing clarity, while bass should stay present and supportive, often locking to the guitar rhythms to reinforce odd accents and momentum. Production-wise, a relatively dry, immediate sound suits the style better than huge ambient wash, though a touch of room reverb or delay can help the cleaner guitar parts breathe.