In the blurb accompanying their new project I Became Birds, the Palm Coast, Florida band Home Is Where claim allegiance with both “whirlwind hardcore aggression” and “warm, open-hearted folksy melancholy.” In practice, that adds up to something like Neutral Milk Hotel with a Warped Tour slant: surreal, shapeshifting epics that seem ripe for obsessive listening.

There are some emo, twee, and post-grunge elements in Brandon MacDonald’s nasal bleat, and the band tends toward arrangements that let that voice ring out. Sometimes that means warm acoustic folk-punk; other times it means electrifying full-speed-ahead punk-rock. But occasionally the album will take an extreme left turn, like the moment when “sewn together from the membrane of the great sea cucumber” veers into searing Deafheaven-adjacent screamo and then drifts into a somber post-rock finale.

Put simply, there’s a lot going on here. Home Is Where have a sound distinctly their own, and although I Became Birds clocks in at EP length, these six songs are crammed full of more than an LP’s worth of ideas. Hear it for yourself by streaming the full project below.

I Became Birds is out now on Knife Punch Records.