Brand New With Thrice and mewithoutYou Dec. 8 A. J. Palumbo Center Doors Open at 6 p.m…. Brand New With Thrice and mewithoutYou Dec. 8 A. J. Palumbo Center Doors Open at 6 p.m. 412-323-1919

Arguably the most respectable band to be lumped into the emo category in the past few years, Brand New will come to Duquesne’s A. J. Palumbo Center Saturday, along with similarly not-Fall-Out-Boy-esque Thrice and mewithoutYou.

Brand New has come a long way since the band was, well, brand new. This Long Island quartet released its debut album, Your Favorite Weapon, in 2001, and was quickly embraced by the just-a-little-too-mature-for-New-Found-Glory crowd. In other words, Brand New was the thinking man’s Blink 182, if that’s at all possible.

2003’s release of Deja Entendu, however, knocked the band from the realm of clever emo-poppers to clever emo-saviors, as the album was full of longer, more developed songs, witty and tortured lyrics and an overall darker tone. The album worked its way onto many a critic’s top albums of the year list just as the band’s video’s danced around MTV for most of the year.

Few could have guessed at what would come next, though, as last year’s The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me pushed the band even farther from the pop-punk mold in which it was formed – the album was closer to a rock’n’roll Radiohead than former contemporaries like the ill-fated Good Charlotte.

Known for near-epic live shows, especially recent ones in support of Devil And God, Brand New will be well-matched by its two openers, the thunderous post-hardcore titans of Thrice and the haunting and complex rockers of mewithoutYou.

The A.J. Palumbo Center is located on Duquesne’s campus and is easily reached by riding any Downtown-bound bus. Come to see the devil and god rage – onstage.