The marriage of post rock and post hardcore shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. After all, the roots of each are closely intertwined: post rock godfathers Slint came out of the punk and hardcore scene of early 90s Kentucky. Unwed Sailor was founded out of the husk of Tooth & Nail post hardcore outfit Roadside Monument.

But still, when the horns and glockenspiels of “Aphelion” give way to screamed vocals and pounding chords, it’s a bit of a surprise. And as this record continues to weave between the purest forms of each genre, it doesn’t get any less unexpected.

On paper, Pneuma isn’t exactly a rare record. It was recorded as a self-produced, studio-only project between vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Gregory Dunn and drummer Nicholas Pizzalotto, who didn’t expect much to come out of it. As such, it’s filled with many of the marks of an amateur debut. “Too many” ideas are crammed into the running time, their production skills unable to match the ambition of the project.

But on wax, this record is transcendent.

Despite its technical shortcomings and lack of compositional restraint (see “Alastika,” which suffers the most), Pneuma is filled with powerful moments that have left their mark on the music scene.

The sonic palette is stretched to the max with reverb-drenched electric guitars, moody drum grooves, string sections, glockenspiels, pianos, and horns. Dunn sings as if he is three men, his vocal lines overlapping and weaving together like a multitude.

“Cover The Roots/Lower The Stems” grooves with a patient post hardcore riff before exploding into a post rock catharsis complete with tremolo guitars and horns that wouldn’t be out of place on a Godspeed You! Black Emperor record—except for the voice-straining chorus. “8105” builds with an urgent energy, rapid drums and a brooding trumpet giving way to a cathartic chorus duet. The final half of the song builds layer by layer to the climax, before collapsing in an ambient wash. Closer “Ode We Will Bury Ourselves” runs for eight minutes through xylophone aided verses, swelling post rock crescendoes, and a final chorus that became a church-like singalong at the final Cornerstone Music Festival.

The huge fist pumping, singalong tracks are punctuated by moments of glistening atmospherics. “Fourth” pairs patient piano chords with samples from a lecture. “Bottom Feeder” sighs with reverb-soaked guitars, glockenspiels, and strings. “The Earth and the Sun” pairs a singalong-made melody with an atmosphere of ambient guitars and trumpets.

The middle of the record takes a short detour in “Sol Solis.” All of the electric guitars, horns, and crashing drums strip back, leaving nothing but an acoustic guitar and Greg Dunn’s voice, augmented with some sparse keyboards, glockenspiels, and a single trumpet solo.

I say again, this record wasn’t meant to go anywhere. But after they uploaded it to MySpace, the internet had different plans. It gained a massive following on the social network, eventually attracting the attention of emo stalwarts Deep Elm Records. The duo put a full band together, and the rest—as they say—is history. And while their later records may lack the amateurish production and over-eager songwriting that sometimes crowds the songs, they would never sound as passionate as they do here.