Lifetime

Lifetime emerged as a cult favorite melodic hardcore unit when singer Ari Katz and guitarist Dan Yemin assembled it in New Jersey during 1990. Its lyrics adopted an affirmative tone that diverged sharply from the cynical outlook then dominant in hardcore circles, generating rapid recognition after the self-titled debut EP appeared in 1991 and the acclaimed full-length Background followed the next year. Numerous roster adjustments preceded the stabilization that occurred ahead of the 1995 Jade Tree debut Hello Bastards, at which point Katz and Yemin enlisted guitarist Pete Martin, bassist Dave Palaitis, and drummer Scott Golley. That album established the group as underground heroes, a standing reinforced by its successor. A short tour supporting the well-received 1997 release Jersey's Best Dancers preceded the band's dissolution, after which Katz, Palaitis, and Golley regrouped in Zero Zero while Yemin joined drummer David Wagenschutz—an early Lifetime member—to launch Kid Dynamite and, later, Paint It Black.

The original lineup reconvened in August 2005 for New Jersey's Hellfest, yet the festival's abrupt cancellation led instead to several East Coast performances whose proceeds benefited charity. Further sold-out concerts followed, among them an appearance at the 2006 South by Southwest festival, prompting Lifetime to re-form in earnest and sign with Decaydance—headed by Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, a longtime admirer—in March 2006. That same month Jade Tree issued the double-disc collection Somewhere in the Swamps of Jersey, which gathered earlier and largely unavailable recordings alongside 52 pages of lyrics, rare photographs, and liner notes. While work proceeded on new material, the band completed a brief summer tour with the Bronx and the Loved Ones. The EP 2 Songs arrived that autumn, heightening expectations for the self-titled album that surfaced in early February 2007 and continued directly from the point at which the members had previously stopped.