Brooklyn Vegan has a look back at the Atticus … Dragging the Lake compilation, which was releases twenty years ago on Side One Dummy Records.
It helped shine even more of a light on Drive-Thru Records, which was a crucial player in emo/pop punk crossover and which was growing rapidly thanks to the success of their flagship band New Found Glory and a then-recent deal with MCA Records (home of blink-182). NFG, who were already pretty big at this point and about to be much bigger upon dropping Sticks and Stones a month after this comp came out, were represented with their then-rare Christmas song “Ex-Miss,” and other Drive-Thru bands who were on the cusp of breakthroughs were there too. Philly emo-leaning pop punks The Starting Line were there with “Greg’s Last Day” from their 2001 debut EP With Hopes of Starting Over, and a few months later they’d begin rapidly rising with their debut LP Say It Like You Mean It. Long Island emo/melodic hardcore band The Movielife made the cut with “Walking On Glass,” one of the best songs from their 2001 EP The Movielife Has A Gambling Problem. Finch, who were instrumental in putting a pop punk-friendly spin on post-harcore, made the cut with “Post Script” from their debut LP What It Is To Burn, which came out a couple months before Dragging the Lake.