Appealing to their listeners with emotional and oftentimes dark lyrics, Story of the Year has developed an unshakable following. Their strain of emo, filled with shouted vocals and a hard, heavy guitar attack that assaults your ears, has also earned them wide critical praise.The band formed in St. Louis in 1995, though they operated under the name Big Blue Monkey, issuing several EPs of a sound that was characteristically heavier than what they would develop by 2002. That year, vocalist Dan Marsala, guitarist Ryan Phillips, guitarist Phillip Sneed, bassist Adam Russell and drummer Joshua Willis decided to change the band's name to Story of the Year. In 2003, they issued their first full-length album, Page Avenue. Their song titles reflected the attitudes of the emo audiences they played to--highlights included "And the Hero Will Drown," "Anthem of Our Dying Day," "Swallow the Knife" and "Razorblades."Comparisons to the Used and Thrice abounded, and the band quickly found the mass exposure they were receiving translated to bigger crowds when they toured. Page Avenue rocketed to the peak position of number one on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, and "Anthem" reached a high of 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.The band would release a live album in 2005, then immediately followed it that year with In the Wake of Determination. The band returned to the heavier sound it pioneered as Big Blue Monkey, scoring a hit with the nihilistic "We Don't Care Anymore." In 2008, the band soldiered on with The Black Swan, which saw them turning to more socially conscious lyrics, touching on issues like the Iraq War.