Which wave of emo are we currently riding out? These pages couldn’t tell you. It sort of seems like after that ambiguous fifth wave — which Club Night were a loose part of upon releasing their 2019 breakthrough debut, What Life — the scene took a deserved breath. Its corners undoubtedly remain as passionate as they ever did within DIY underbelly communities across Discord channels and subreddits, but it works to the Oakland four-piece’s benefit that they waited six years and the dissolution of that wave before returning with their long-awaited sophomore follow-up, Joy Coming Down.

Broad stroke genre descriptor never really fit whatever they were bringing to the studio anyhow. Whether you want to argue that it’s colorful, keyboard-speckled noise-pop (“Judah”, “Lake”,) feverish post-hardcore (“Dream”) and experimental math-rock (“Station”,) an extension of hyperactive indie rock in the Philly sense (“Palace”, “Rabbit”,) or an amalgamation of all of the above, that unpredictable nature is what makes every moment throughout Joy Coming Down burst and recoil emotively beyond concrete shape, allowing you to impress your own perception onto its intention. That’s poetic. It’s said that everyone grieves differently, and at the core of Joy Coming Down, grief is that big, heavy thing front and center.

But also, these don’t really sound like songs of traditional mourning because mourning is an individual process that feels different over time, and vocalist Josh Bertram, guitarist Ian Tatum, bassist Devin Trainer, and drummer Nicholas Cowman explore all corners of it. It’s a fitting dedication in part to vocalist Bertram’s mentor and Frightened Rabbit frontman, Scott Hutchinson, in which word “elegy” is in anthem with celebrating the cosmic forces that binds us to the voids of the universe. As every tear drop falls for the ones we’ve lost, Club Night mark their memories in ecstatic guitars and lightning bolt rhythm that remind us to be joyful for the moments where our energies crossed paths — tiny changes with big feelings we make along this Earthly journey, before dispersing into the beyond.

Highlights: “Palace”, “Judah”, “Rabbit”

Club Night’s Joy Coming Down is available now on Tiny Engines.

Buy | Stream