Among most circles, emo is often spoken of dismissively. It is the cracking-voiced, limp-wristed realm of cringy, whingey, immature songwriters offering up poor-me missives put to noodly, poorly composted guitar parts and over-exuberant, off-time rhythm sections.

To anyone who buys into such a cartoonish critique of the genre, allow me to offer The Casket Lottery as a counterpoint. Formed as an offshoot of mathy metalcore heroes Coalesce, The Casket Lottery has always showcased emo at its very best, making great use of what made the genre so irresistable without allowing themselves to fall into the clichés that plague many of their contemporaries.

Short Songs for End Times, their second album since reuniting in 2010, is a punch straight to the gut that sets their brand of hard-hitting emotional punk on politics, tackling the division and absurdity of the post-truth era.

The lead single “Born Lonely,” which closes the first side, is the most straightforward of these statements, making its point with as few metaphors as possible. Its clarity is stark, sounding almost like it was transcribed verbatim from a real-life argument. The eavesdropping is made more palatable by the catchy-as-ever hooks, augmented by a pair of angular guitar parts circling around eachother while Stacy Hilt’s melodic bass dances with the straightforward drums. The second track “Big Heart/Closed Mind” is similar both musically and lyrically, with words that try to shove the square peg of “Good Christian” folks’ devotion to Jesus’ teachings into the round hole of Trumpian politics.

The theme of hypocrisy and conflict threads through the entire record, but it’s not always quite as specific. Opener “You Are a Knife” is a bit more vague, but it makes up for it with musical heft. After all, Hilt and frontman Nathan Ellis both played in Coalesce, so of course there’s going to be some big, mathy riffs on this record. Even when they aren’t playing full volume, traces of their mathcore roots can be spotted if you know what to look for.

Any musician worth their salt knows that the notes you don’t play are just as important as the ones you do. This is especially true among players in metalcore, as that genre’s grooves are built on Morse Code-esque sequences of blasts of noise and rests. While this certainly isn’t metalcore by any respect, that sense of groove and syncopation still permeates every track. The main riff of closer “Sad Dream” shifts forward and back by an eighth note between repeats, giving it an unnerving push-and-pull that imbues the music with the same anxiety as the lyrics.

That instinct for groove is augmented by a spellbinding sense of atmosphere. This is put to the forefront in lower tracks like “Sisyphus Blues” and “Unalone,” which flirt with post rock and Radiohead-esque alternative. However, even the heavier tracks have a satisfying helping of reverb-drenched guitars and airy synthesizers.

It’s a deceptively dense record—its ten tracks clock in at a mere thirty-eight minutes, but those minutes feel much longer due to the relentless sonic onslaught. The songs are short, as advertised, but their weight is much more significant than their runtime. As a result, Short Songs for End Times might just be their best album ever. And with a pedigree like theirs (and the absolutely genre-defining classic that is Moving Mountains) that’s saying an awful lot.