Not sure what we did to deserve both Modern Baseball’s Holy Ghost and Slaughter Beach, Dog’s Welcome in the same year, but I can’t complain! Welcome serves as a great companion piece to MoBo’s latest, as Jake Ewald — one-half of that band’s songwriting brain — takes a break from heavy introspection to put on a bunch of different hats and try to figure out what other people are going through. All the songs on Welcome are written from the perspectives of fictional people in the town of Slaughter Beach, which is an admirable concept, but most importantly, Welcome scratches the same itch as Holy Ghost: it’s solid, catchy, impactful rock music that puts just as much emphasis on hooks as it does on emotional honesty. Early singles “Monsters” and “Forever” only scratch the surface of the gems that are on this album, and you can stream the entire thing via The A.V. Club below.

Welcome is out 9/30 via Lame-O Records. Pre-order it physically here or digitally here.