My sophomore year of high school, I found a great indie/emo band called Sky’s the Limit on Interpunk.com (oh, Interpunk…their website has never been updated, btw). I bought their only release, which was only released on a burned CD-R, and I was spellbound by the intricate guitar work, catchy rhythms, and soaring melodies.

So when I discovered Mae on an old Tooth & Nail compilation, I was attracted to them for many of the same reasons. I bought this album, and was amazed to find a Sky’s the Limit song on it. It was only then that I realized that Dave Elkins was the lead singer and principal songwriter for both of them.

Destination: Beautiful is a gorgeous record that is sadly underappreciated. They were staples of the Tooth & Nail roster, but their sound was a little too far to the indie side to get much appreciation from the label’s punk acolytes. Their optimistic sentimentality was played with enough sincerity to have the dreaded “corny” label leveled at them. And maybe that’s fair. Their name is an acronym for “Multi-sensory Aesthetic Experience,” for crying out loud.

But dismissing the band on those grounds misses some of the catchiest, most emotive songs of the early 00s. “Embers and Envelopes” is the obvious standout—it was the lead single and appeared in a number of compilations. It was also the first song that Elkins and drummer Jacob Marshall wrote together. And while it’s a great example of what makes Mae so great, there are a few songs that exceed it. “This Time is the Last Time” drives with dark, staccato chord stabs. “Sun” would be mournful if it weren’t for an urgent drum groove and a high-energy chorus. “Giving It Away” is an epic ballad the employs synths, loops, and drum machines across a near six-minute running time. It would have been a great closer for the album—and maybe should have been, considering the whiplash you might get from the marchy “Goodbye, Goodnight.”

That said, this isn’t a perfect record. The second half is a little forgettable, and occasionally dips into the corny sentimentality they’re accused of (see: The Soundtrack For Our Movie). And while “Goodbye, Goodnight isn’t a terrible song, the sequencing would be much better served with it somewhere else in the tracklist.

But those missteps are forgivable for a debut. And if that’s as bad as Mae gets, then it’s still pretty dang good. There were certainly worse albums put out by bands with more acclaim.