I recently wrote about how surprised I was to discover that Manchester Orchestra had a thick layer of folksiness on top of what I was expecting to be an emo-leaning catalog.

The most jarring part of that realization came as a result of seeing a number of tracks from A Black Mile to the Surface in their top tracks on Spotify and deciding to start there. And boy, was the stripped down, Gospel tinged “The Maze” a huge wake-up call. In fact, I’m pretty sure that song has played on my Fleet Foxes Pandora station…

After I got over the shattering of my expectations of what Manchester Orchestra was, I found myself listening to an incredibly rewarding album. While not every track is quite as subdued or rustic, that sensibility covers even the most aggressive songs on this disc.

While Manchester Orchestra’s musical center has always (at least according to my recent deep dive) had a strong appreciation for roots music, A Black Mile to the Surface seems to give even more fully to those tendencies—much like Cope indulged in their more punk instincts. There are brilliant spans of folk, blues, and even old school R&B that are punctuated by moments of emo catharsis. The production is incredible slick enough—enough to land some of the songs on my indie pop folk playlist—but the band’s punk rock integrity has no problem remaining true through it.

“The Gold” is just as melodic as “The Maze,” but set to an angular drum track and bursts of electric guitar. “The Moth” and “Lead, SD” are both loud and dark. When I was binging this and Cope back to back, these tracks were probably the two that kept leading me to confuse the tracklistings.

The B-side run is definitely the most impressive run on the album. The acoustic-only “The Alien,” the R&B tinged “The Sunshine,” and the distortion-punctuated “The Grocery” play on uninterrupted like a single, masterfully crafted song that shifts between mood and themes so cohesively that I had to double check that they were different tracks.

That suite is followed by “The Wolf,” moody number driven by synth bass and warlike drums. “The Mistake” follows and keeps the synths, but drops the aggression. “The Parts” pulls back the sonic tracks and finds Andy Hull alone with his acoustic guitar. It’s a brilliant, understated track that serves as the calm before the storm, as “The Silence” pulls out every stop to create a stunning finale. It begins quietly enough, keyboards, a tom-driven rhythm, and bluesy guitars playing a plaintive, minor key progression. The band swells gradually, adding elements on top of eachother until it bursts after the bridge.

Lyrically, the album is filled with the poignant turns of phrases and pastoral Middle American slices of life we’ve come to expect from Hull. Mundane images of grocery stores and mining country are punctuated by engagements and overdose-induced spaceships and the birth of a child, while the narrator wrestles with doubt, ancestry, and the nature of love. And this is all done with clever wordplay and a profound simplicity, such as when he sings in “The Grocery:” ”

I want to reach above the paradox where nobody can see
Want to hold a light to paradigm and strip it to its feet
I want to feel the way your father felt, was it easy for belief?
I want to know if there’s a higher love he saw that I can’t see

Across eleven tracks marked with impeccable performances, slick production, and incredible songwriting, Manchester Orchestra shows why they are worth the cult following that they’ve amassed over the last several years. As for me, I think I’m becoming a convert.