Washington, DC · emo · pop-punk · midwest-emo

Origami Angel

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A two-piece making absurdly dense, tapping-heavy emo that sounds like four people having the best day of their lives — Gami gang, assemble.

Ryland Heagy and Pat Doherty met in late 2015, when Doherty was drumming for a band called RYK. Heagy recruited him for his own band, Idle Empire, but it broke up soon after. Rather than let a batch of new songs go unused, Heagy recorded them with Doherty as a two-piece and named the project Origami Angel.

Working without a bassist, the duo builds arrangements from tapped and layered guitar lines across Midwest emo, pop-punk and easycore, keeping songs short, fast and hook-heavy. Lyrics lean toward humour, friendship and references to video games and comics.

Their first EP, Quiet Hours, came out in 2017 with a softer, stripped-down sound. The following year's Doing the Most found the heavier, guitar-driven pop-punk approach that shaped their later work, made on a DIY basis with both members pooling income from day jobs to fund recording.

A split EP with Commander Salamander and the Pokémon-referencing Gen 3 EP came out in 2019, ahead of their debut album Somewhere City, which brought them a wider audience. Pandemic restrictions on touring pushed them back into songs already written.

That material became the 2021 double album Gami Gang, whose title also names their fanbase. A mixtape, The Brightest Days, followed in 2023, and a third album, Feeling Not Found, arrived in September 2024.

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emopop-punkmidwest-emo