Brooklyn's Proper. (formerly known as Great Wight) emerged in 2017 with The Suburbs Have Ruined My Life, an explosive set of emo-punk anthems that chronicled frontman Erik Garlington's adolescence as a queer black man making his way from the bible belt to New York City. They inked a deal with U.K. indie Big Scary Monsters ahead of the release of their sophomore effort, 2019's critically acclaimed I Spent the Winter Writing Songs About Getting Better. Three years later, the band issued the ambitious Bartees Strange-produced Great American Novel, a concept LP about race, sexuality, gender, and systemic oppression. ~ James Christopher Monger