Note: this article was written by Eric Grubbs of our sister paper, the Dallas Observer.

Come Friday night, this might be your only chance to see Mineral play in Houston.

Winding down a reunion tour that began last August, the Austin four-piece plays here and then Dallas, but after that, all scheduled tourdates are outside of the United States. Having never toured outside of the country during their original incarnation, the band will play Europe, Japan, and Australia next.

What comes after that remains up in the air. They might play some more festivals leading up to the summer, but don't place a large bet they're coming back for a victory lap. "It might end all there or we might pick away at it, do shows here and there," front man/guitarist Chris Simpson says from his home in Austin. "It's tough to say. We didn't want to overstay our welcome, but we want to play for people who are interested and play internationally."

Mineral's current status fits with a common phrase these days: no band really breaks up for good anymore. With destination festivals offering generous amounts of money to bands and the easy access to music on the Internet, it's not a taboo thing for an independent band to reunite, even if the reunion is short-lived. Heralded bands from the '80s and '90s don't have to tour nine months out of the year to get their name out there. In most cases, their music has been praised and shared for years, so the initiated and the newbies aren't out of the loop.

For people who loved pioneering emo bands in the late '90s or just heard of them last year, these bands had a lot of activity in 2014. American Football, Braid, the Jazz June, and Gameface played shows and either celebrated re-releases or put out new records. With Mineral, their two albums were re-released with bonus material on Arena Rock Recording.

Rounded out with drummer Gabriel Wiley, guitarist Scott-David McCarver, and bassist Jeremy Gomez, Mineral concocted something extremely potent when they came together in the mid-90s. When their debut The Power of Failing was released, the influence of Sunny Day Real Estate was obvious. The charging, quiet/loud dynamics, along with maudlin melodies and high-reaching vocals were all easy to lump together as emo.

Many fans of pop-punk, hardcore, and indie-rock found the '90s version of emo -- a progression from emo-core in the mid-'80s -- an absolute revelation. So did keen major-label scouts looking for something to sell to teenagers after grunge's popularity died down.

Mineral and some of their contemporaries, like Christie Front Drive and Texas Is the Reason, had received heavy courting from major labels, but opted to break up instead of signing with one. (Mineral was about to sign with Interscope Records, believe it or not.) The bands were wise enough to know that their growing internal struggles would only irreparably damage the relations between its bandmates, especially with a major label backing.

Given the acclaim of Mineral's debut along with their posthumously-released second album, EndSerenading, it was not surprising that the members found strong and mostly-favorable reactions in their post-Mineral bands. Simpson and Gomez formed the Gloria Record, Wiley joined Pop Unknown, and Wiley and McCarver formed Imbroco. But none of them eclipsed the impact of Mineral's work, so people asked about a potential reunion for years. The answer was always no.

"That annoyed me for a long time," Simpson says of the reunion question. "Now I'm older and more laid-back and accept that for what it is. That's a beautiful thing to see people feel about something you made."

The influence of Mineral's sound, along with many of the bands they toured with and/or shared vinyl sides with, would be obvious with the wave of what the mainstream saw as emo in the first decade of the 2000s. Bands who took the angst and aimed for fame and platinum-selling records got a lot of attention, but they didn't seem completely sincere. They seemed to have more in common with '80s hair metal in terms of looks, sound, and approach.

"Most of the time, when people told me Mineral influenced this or that band, I would say, 'Oh man, sorry,'" Simpson says with a laugh. "I don't think it could possibly be true, but if I'm responsible for that in any way, I apologize."

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