Prevent the World

Criteria were an Omaha band on Saddle Creek — the label that also housed Bright Eyes, Cursive, and The Faint during one of American indie music's more geographically concentrated golden periods. Stephen Pedersen's post-hardcore project occupied a space between the emotional intensity of emo and the melodic ambition of indie rock.

Prevent the World, from their debut When We Break (2004), demonstrates the Criteria approach: loud/quiet dynamics in the post-Pixies tradition, Pedersen's voice urgent without being hysterical, the arrangements more sophisticated than the genre sometimes allowed.

Criteria are a footnote in the Saddle Creek story — overshadowed by the label's more celebrated acts. When We Break is the kind of record rediscovered periodically by listeners working through a label's catalog.