The Only Children

Kansas City’s the Anniversary tweaked emo tradition in two ways: 1. They had a female singer, which meant frontman Josh Berwanger could only pull off so much girls-are-mean before Adrianne Pope would defend her kind, and 2. They were willing to grow, going from synth-pop cuties to prog-rock scaries in just two records. There’s a woman in Berwanger’s new band, the Only Children, and he’s moved on again stylistically, too; on Change of Living, their forthcoming debut, the Children sound like Kings of Leon with less attitude (and less hair). Not much tradition-tweaking, to be sure, but give ’em time.