Relying on nostalgia can be a too-easy tug at a cheap win these days, but when looking back is executed right, it has the ability to bring a moment’s past back into the present genuinely. This is where we find the Van Pelt 26 years later on “Punk House”, the adored indie-emo band’s first new music in forever and lead single to their return album, Artisans & Merchants, due out later this spring. Wiser than ever in both their positions in life and as artists, and rightfully revered for a movement happening before it even had a name, Chris Leo, Brian Maryansky, Neil O’Brien, and Sean Greene’s first creative entry into the 21st century hears them rummaging through memories like an old VHS cassette, mapping out not just the places they remember, but those seemingly mundane details about white belts and resin floors that made them into personal lore. They move through those memories masterfully, each one becoming more vivid as the listen emerges from a distant post-rock winter until it warms the surface. It’s all there like yesterday, yet even better told today.

The Van Pelt’s Artisans & Merchants will be released March 17th on Gringo Records / La Castanya / Spartan Records.