While the Get Up Kids were still in braces, Kansas City’s Boys Life were setting the local pace for post-hardcore’s shift towards emo. Their 1993 debut 7” Lister b/w Without Doubt for Columbia, Missouri’s Synergy imprint leans heavy into DC’s minor key embrace, flickering back and forth between loud and quiet, hard and soft, whisper-singing and screaming. The foursome put out multiple split 7" and two full length albums, "Boys Life" in 1995 and "Departures and Landfalls" in 1996, calling it quits in 1997.