I’ve been a fan of Omaha’s Cursive for quite a while. I picked up a CD single of “Art is Hard” from my local music store in 12th grade, and I spun those two songs on repeat for weeks. I downloaded several songs from Domestica on LimeWire and burned them to my one of my many emo mixes. Through my “serious music fan” phase in college, The Ugly Organ was one of the few emo records that I still listened to regularly.

But as much as I love those records, I’ve never dug too deep into their earlier material. That is, until I bought a box of classic records from my friend Stephen that included most of the Cursive back catalog.

Debut records are always interesting beasts, especially for acts of some significance. Often, they are odd sorts of time capsules that showcase the artists in an embryonic state. There may be seeds of their later, more celebrated work, but often they are buried deep, deep in the dirt. And while Such Blinding Stars… is no Pablo Honey, it showcases a quite different band than the one I came to love as a teen.

First things first: this record was released in 1997, smack dab in the middle of both emo’s second wave and the rise of jagged, mathy post hardcore a la Drive Like Jehu and June of 44. And for its part, Such Blinding Stars… exists in the middle of these influences. There are plenty of twinkling, Mineral guitar lines, but they are juxtaposed by angular, dissonant guitar explosions. This is most evident on opening track “After the Movies,” a slow-burn explosion that features the closest vocalist Tim Kasher ever got to a Jeremy Enigk impression.

Dissonant guitars and dynamic shifts aren’t unfamiliar colors in Cursive’s later sonic staples. In fact, they’re some of the most important shades. But there are some elements here that feel surprising to the mid-career Cursive fan. “Downhill Racers” is maybe the poppiest song they’ve ever done. “Target Group” has huge dynamic shifts between hushed, nearly whispered verses to amp-blowing, throat-tearing choruses. “Eight Light Minutes” is largely instrumental, jumping through a jagged Slint-does-funk jam with abrasive guitars bouncing back and forth over an acrobatic bass line.

One of the biggest oddities in the context of the “Typical Cursive” format is the lack of overarching themes and dramatic self-referential narratives. One of the things I’ve always loved about Cursive is the almost theatrical lens they bring to their records. Domestica and Ugly Organ are both concept albums—Ugly Organ in particular being very ambitious in concept. There doesn’t appear to be any such unifying theme here, which, while probably a good idea for a debut album, feels a bit odd. That isn’t to say there’s none of Kasher’s meta irony here though. On “Warped the Wood Floors,” he sings in a ragged voice, “I’ve got a Gibson. My throat is drying from screaming.” In “Downhill Racers,” he sarcastically says, “there’s another verse,” in the middle of the instrumental section before verse two. There are also plenty of the usual themes Cursive would go on to rely on—disillusionment in the status quo (“Retirement,” “Farewell Party“), the breakdown of romantic relationships (“Ceilings Crack,” “Vermont“), and general existential dread (pick literally any song).

While this debut definitely feels different than Kasher & Co.’s mid-career masterpieces, it’s definitely more a sapling than a seed. With only two singles to their name at this point, Cursive had already crafted an original voice that, even compared to the rest of their body of work, is instantly recognizable. They may not achieve the same stunning heights as their more ambitious records, but they’re definitely climbing the same mountain.