Screamo acts Missouri Executive Order 44 and Usurp Synapse have released a joint EP on May 30, 2025, via The Ghost Is Clear Records, available digitally on Bandcamp, with 7” vinyl preorders open, and streaming services following this week. It marks Usurp Synapse’s first split since 2000 and brings together two bands rooted in divergent yet equally intense trajectories: one channeling 19th-century persecution into mathcore, the other returning from the dead with cryptic humor and visceral screamo energy.
Missouri Executive Order 44 hails from Kansas City and takes its name from Governor Lilburn Boggs’ infamous 1838 order calling for the expulsion or extermination of Mormons from Missouri.
The band leans into that historical violence not to glorify it, but to draw parallels with modern-day authoritarianism. Dressed in white shirts and bike helmets — a nod to Mormon missionaries — they invert common scene narratives by claiming solidarity with their persecuted ancestors.
“The struggle against fascist violent oppression of ‘undesirables’ is universal,” says guitarist Elos Olsen. “We use a very fucked-up moment of hyper localized American history to relay that message for the fight against oppression.”
Vocalist Jarom Johnson adds: “Missouri Executive Order 44 is a reminder that we, as decent human beings, need to stand together in communities and collectives to overthrow tyrannical authority… Our message is one of retribution, anti-colonialism, anti-state and pro-humanity.”
Usurp Synapse, originally from Lafayette, Indiana, reemerged recently after two decades, bringing their signature blend of grindcore-influenced drumming, raw screaming, and off-kilter humor. Active first from 1998 to 2001, they were known for chaotic live shows and infamous splits — including one with Jeromes Dream and Hassan I Sabbah, that came packaged with razor blades. Their side of this split is their first in nearly 25 years.
The album as a whole revolves around the collapse of structures — be they societal, emotional, or personal — and the unpredictable terrain left behind. Whether it’s recontextualized religious trauma, millennial internet rot, or the erosion of love, both bands engage directly with disintegration and what comes after.
Missouri Executive Order 44
Twister of ’79
Jarom Johnson: We wrote these songs shortly after the release of our LP last summer. I had been reading some anecdotal stories about Mormonism in Ray County, sitting out on my porch in the country one night. I found a story from June 1878 referencing the testimony of David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. The story goes: a cyclone descended on Richmond (only 10 miles from my house) and destroyed more than a third of the village leaving 500 people houseless, and 12 dead. David Whitmer’s home was destroyed except for a small room that was perfectly in tact – a room that contained the original printers copy of the Book of Mormon.
Tornadoes terrify me but every time the siren goes off here I think about how baffling a tornado must have been to people on the plains a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago. I like imagining that their impulse would be to think some God was furious with whatever they might have been doing the moment before the twister dropped. Like if you were eating beans you’d probably never eat beans again. Superstition almost. I feel like we all have this flaw, thinking that our actions somehow affect the outcome of all things; that our simple misstep could be the reason a diety sent a tornado to destroy 512 people’s lives. But really it’s just some fucked up weather. “God doesn’t love a man, we need another plan.”
Youaregoingtodiedotcom
It started with a nasty riff Elos brought to a practice. If memory serves, we were joking about the most over the top screamo titles we grew up with and one of us slowly worked out, “You are going to die ….. dot com?”. It was a hit.
I wanted to look at the way we all four grew up online. A lot (most) of my youth was spent on the early internet: Napster, lime wire, MySpace, digging around for new music. It was also spent sitting around friends’ family computers logging into 4chan and witnessing absolutely fucked up gore when our parents went to bed.
Seeing that shit at a young age kinda radicalizes a kid one way or the other – never wanting to see it again or going down the rabbit hole. It’s not really a mystery to me why so many of us are maladjusted, when at 13 years old we could just click a link and log off Habbo Hotel to go see someone’s head blown off.
The kids I grew up with around that time are all pretty blown out and terrifying now. I guess they’d say the same about me hahah, but we all were raised by the internet for better or worse. And my neighbor really did drunk drive through our front lawn when I was a kid. I was playing Tony hawk pro skater and I don’t think I even looked up from the TV while that dude almost drove through our kitchen. Locked in.
USURP SYNAPSE
Antonio Leiriao: Usurp wrote these songs in a house in the woods over a weekend in early 2025. There were a bunch of feral cats around that helped us polish up the rough edges. Lyrics are about loss, nature, and renewal. Oh and jokes. We are always about the jokes.
Keith Sweat Part 2
It’s a tongue in cheek reference to one of the band’s earlier songs. Neither song has anything to do with one another it’s just our humor and it fit the theme of naming every song on our side of the split with a musical reference. That’s us. Inside jokes forever. The song lyrics deal with modern life, age, the entropic self, etc.
Maryland Mansion
This song kind of came about from the band struggling to fit a Marilyn Manson riff into a song. It took a bit but once it clicked we wrote the song in ten minutes. Cats laughed. Lyrics about…cats and rats.
Kenny Login
It’s another dour affair lyrically. A song about love and the erosion of that love. Moving on from something and the reflecting on that past situation. A bit like the bridle in a horse’s mouth as they gallop forward.
At The Drive Thru
The last track is more of a prose poem lyrically. It’s open to interpretation honestly. But themes of entropy, nature as metaphor, and renewal in self and nature. The cats cried.
MISSOURI EXECUTIVE ORDER 44 live shows:
July 3: Lincoln, NE at El Proyecto
July 4: Denver, CO at 7th Circle
July 5: Salt Lake City, UT at Aces High
July 6: Boise, ID at Realms Arcade
July 7: Spokane, WA at The Big Dipper
July 8: Everett, WA at Lucky Dime
July 9: Portland, OR at Commonwealth Skatepark
July 10: Eugene, OR at Wandering Goat
July 12: Berkeley, CA at Mathcore Index Fest 2025
July 13: Los Angeles, CA at FKA Church
July 14: San Diego, CA at The Print Shop
July 15: Mesa, AZ at The Nile Underground
July 17: El Paso, TX at The Asylum
July 18: Austin, TX at Alienated Majesty
July 19: Denton, TX at The House With No Name
July 20: Oklahoma City, OK at The Sanctuary
