Last night, I went to a hardcore show in a crowded basement on a Monday night in South Bend, Indiana (like…a surprisingly crowded basement. And everybody showed up before the first band and stayed the whole time??? It was nuts).

And among a lineup of heavy riffing, mosh pitting, passionate hardcore, Crafter from Massachusetts stood far above the rest.

Juxtaposed with the rest of the two-step ready breakdowns and “get the fuck ups!” from the rest of the bands, Crafter’s clear-eyed, heart-wrenching, gut-punching authenticity put them in a pack of their own.

This authenticity was even more cemented when after their set, I went to buy this record and lead singer Kyle Taylor grabbed the liner sheet: a Xerox of lyrics that he wrote out by hand.

His confessional, idealistic (and straightedge) lyrics and shouted delivery aren’t too far from La Dispute’s Jordan Dreyer’s. But the rest of the group sticks to a more old school hardcore. There’s still plenty of beat-down riffs and straight-ahead punk rhythms, occasionally punctuated by short reprieves of melody or slower sections. There’s enough hardcore punk aggression to keep the old school purists happy (if anything can keep them happy), but enough sonic reprieve to offer some moments of emotional tension.

And while many hardcore bands don’t communicate well at all on tape, Embrace captures these songs with all of the fury and earnestness that they had when performed in a basement. If I close my eyes, I can practically see Taylor’s razor-sharp stare cutting over the microphone. I can hear his impassioned declarations for reclaiming our humanity from the chemical dependencies, exploited labor, and depression that try to steal it from us between each song.

Admittedly, I don’t have the deepest hardcore roots. I have much more affinity for Fugazi than Minor Threat. I followed the emo and pop punk branches of the punk family tree. But when a band like Crafter shows up and does what they do, you don’t need to understand hardcore to know that they’ve got it.