It feels bizarre to remember now, but by the time 2000 rolled around, many people had felt that the emo scene was already waning—after all, Sunny Day Real Estate had already broken up and had a reunion. Mineral had been defunct for two years. And even those stalwarts were considered to be latecomers—and even imposters—to a  scene rooted in emotional hardcore bands like Rites of Spring and Embrace.

But the turn of the Millenium saw an explosion of the emo scene, with bands like American Football, The Appleseed Cast, Jimmy Eat World, and hundreds of others borrowing the juxtaposition of sparkling clean guitars and cathartic explosions of distortion to create their own language.

One of the understated heroes of this scene was The Casket Lottery, formed by former members of mathcore pioneers Coalesce. While certainly a departure from their off-time metalcore chugs, there’s certainly enough muscle in their sophomore album, Moving Mountains, to dissuade anyone from calling them wimpy emo kids.

Moving Mountains may not be the most influential emo album of the early 2000s, but it may be the most emblematic. All of the conventions of the scene are here: angular guitar arpeggios, acrobatic bass lines (courtesy of Stacy Hilt, whom I have become friends with in recent years), asymmetrical drum fills, and mercurial vocals that shift from airy melodies to near screams. It’s not the first time these elements have been combined, but this album may be the most successful attempt at alchemy any emo band in that era ever made.

I’m not sure if I had heard this album before last year, but something deep inside of me knew that I must have. It feels like the Platonic ideal of everything I was listening to in 2003. From the opening off time arpeggios of “Dead Deer” to the singalong fade out of “Optimist Honor Roll,” this album feels like a time machine.

And I mean that in the best way possible. I’ve only recently become familiar with these songs, but they feel the way I felt as a teenager navigating the hazards of adolescence, with all of the angst and joy and earnestness I felt bursting in my chest. It’s the sort of thing I would have heard and said, “someone actually understands.”

But for all its nostalgia, it’s not dated. It sounds as fresh now as it must have twenty-one years ago. This is especially evidenced by last year’s Short Songs for End Times, which proved that there’s still a lot to say with the same musical vocabulary.

At under thirty minutes, the only flaw with this album is that there isn’t more of it. I guess I’ll just have to flip it back over and reclaim my wasted youth.