Members of some of the heaviest hardcore bands currently working — SeeYouSpaceCowboy, Typecaste, Rain Of Salvation, Hangman, Adrenaline — have joined forces to form a new group called Koyo. With this new project, they could’ve collectively crushed all of our skulls. Instead, they’ve gone a different direction, coming up with a hearty and melodic sound that pays tribute to the emo heritage of Long Island, their shared homeland. And yes, that means Taking Back Sunday.

It had to happen eventually, right? DIY bands draw on the music that moved them when they were kids. Taking Back Sunday moved a whole lot of kids. Long Island emo and melodic hardcore goes a lot deeper than TBS, and Koyo also pull inspiration from bands like the Movielife and Silent Majority. Koyo released their debut EP Painting Words Into Lines over the weekend, and it has some tremendously chunky guitars. It also has a whole lot of melodramatic harmonic uplift and some big, big hooks. If you had any love for the emo that was coming out around the turn of the millennium, this is the kind of thing you might be into.

As Brooklyn Vegan points out, vocalist Joey Chiaramonte, who’s also in Typecaste, gave this statement to Exclaim!:

Painting Words into Lines is our love letter to Long Island music that shaped our entire lives. We all grew up on bands from Long Island that have deep-seated roots in hardcore. We want to continue that tradition as best we can. This is real music about real experiences, and we hope it’s as cathartic for listeners as it was for us to bring it all together.

Stream the EP below:

The self-released Painting Words Into Lines EP is out now, and you can get it at Bandcamp.