"What the covers record does is make a case for why LP1 remains such a transportive and transcendental record 25 years on." - Paste

"Such a seminal album obviously deserves a birthday celebration for the ages, and the band is pulling out all the stops. American Football forever, indeed." - The AV Club

"American Football stands as irrefutable proof that unashamedly emotional music can be complex and intelligent too. A new generation of listeners has emerged with an openness and willingness to explore and share their inner worlds ? and to them, American Football will be a friend." - CRACK

"Midwestern emo's most influential album."  - The Line of Best Fit

American Football cut its first?and, for a long time, only?LP in four days, as the spring of 1999 slid into summer. Steve Holmes, Steve Lamos, and Mike Kinsella were college kids who knew that as soon as their album of spacious and tenderly sad songs was done they likely would be, too. And for a long while, of course, that is exactly what happened: American Football?s sole album was a twinkling and circuitous entry in the annals of Midwest emo, remarkable for its musical tenderness and lyrical ellipses but largely unremarked upon, too.

When Polyvinyl released American Football, it was still an upstart label, an outgrowth of a fanzine with a simple business model and a pure passion for releasing the music co-founders Matt and Darcie Lunsford loved. Both label and band have grown in the quarter-century since in ways neither would have predicted. After a years-long hunt for the original Digital Audio Tapes and a subsequent quest for a machine that would render them properly, American Football (LP1) has been remastered by original mastering engineer Jonathan Pines in Urbana?s Private Studios, where it was recorded. The intertwined guitars have more sparkle, the drums more bounce and flash, the occasional bass more depth. This is the definite version.

The new edition arrives alongside American Football (Covers), an ingeniously programmed set that highlights not only the way the band fueled an eventual ?emo revival,? but also and perhaps more important how their songs and sounds infiltrated and inspired so many corners of music. From string-swept and imaginative folk to idiosyncratic international pop, from intricate instrumental splendor to open-road shoegaze wonder, (Covers) traces?or at least teases?the endless ways the source material has cut across borders of generation, genre, and geography. It affirms just how important the nine songs three college kids cut in four days remain. Listen to both albums digitally now. 

Order your copy of American Football (25th Anniversary Edition) adorned in a spot embossed and silver foil gatefold packaging with a 24-page booklet as well as American Football (Covers) on White w/ Gold & Blue Splatter vinyl - shipping by November 1.

This past weekend, Ethel Cain and Yvette Young joined American Football on stage during their sold-out LA shows to perform their songs from the covers album, ?For Sure? and ?You Know I Should Be Leaving Soon? respectively. The band?s 25th anniversary tour continues this fall with upcoming sold out shows in DC, NYC, plus Corona Capital in Mexico City.  All upcoming dates including 2025 shows in New England and Asia are on sale now.