How I found this record
I first caught Koyo when they started touring around the US with bands I’d already seen and loved — Drain (who also turn up on the track “Saying Vs. Meaning”) among them. I started following them, watched the singles roll out, and then the full album landed. It was the singles that got me to hit play.
Not the LIHC I expected
Here’s the thing that grabbed me before I’d even decided whether I liked it: Koyo is billed as hardcore from Long Island. New York’s hardcore scene has a reputation for being aggressive and heavy — think the Madballs and H2Os and Gorilla Biscuits of the LIHC canon. So I went in expecting something gnarly. What I got was far poppier than that, and it’s a pleasant surprise.
After a few full listens I swear I’ve heard this album before. It feels like a 2026 version of Take This to Your Grave by Fall Out Boy. I can totally picture FOB playing these songs back in 2003 — the guitars and the pace really seem to draw from that sound, almost eerily close. It’s very pop punk wrapped in hardcore rhythms, and it wears that influence on its sleeve.
What it does to me
This record gets me hyped. It makes me want to go skateboarding — and I don’t even know how to skateboard, so that’s saying something. It’s uptempo, aggressive in rhythm, melodic on the surface, and it just moves.
The lyrics are where it really lands for me, because they’re relatable. “Jet Stream Wish” has this line about the routines we live through while chaos swirls around us — “Between the routines that we live / And all the chaos that conflicts around us / Constant, unconscious” — and it ends on “When I’m with you, I could never be / Alone or on my own.” That one hits differently. I feel it with my wife; she’s great.
Where it stumbles
No album gets a free pass. The tracks that lean on different time signatures and move a little slower than the bigger singles are the weak ones. That’s not to say they can’t play a slower song — it’s that the fast rhythm on the other tracks is clearly what’s more attractive to a listener. When the pace drops, the record loses a step.
The verdict
Four stars. This is Koyo’s sophomore record on Pure Noise Records, and by now they’ve really cemented their sound. It feels comfortable — and honestly, that’s a strength. I went in expecting typical LIHC and got what’s going to be remembered as a pop-punk classic.
