Perhaps the biggest problem with emo is how the term has been fundamentally misunderstood.

When the term finally broke into the cultural lexicon in the early 2000s, it was mostly attached to bands like Panic! At the Disco, Green Day, and My Chemical Romance, who are not emo bands—MCR would even tell you this themselves. And yet, legions of yuppies and soccer moms would see dark clothes, shaggy hair, and eyeliner and attach the three-letter epithet to it. Even bands who did claim the tag for themselves in those days bore little resemblance to the emo bands of yore.

But over the last several years, a crop of musicians have risen up to free the word Emo from the girl jeans of its mallcore misappropriation and return to the sparkling guitars, patient dynamics, and mournful vocals of the scene’s earlier days.

And this split, between Norway’s You Could Be A Cop and Germany’s Amid the Old Wounds, is a perfect example of what emo is supposed to be.

For all of the blame Hot Topic deserves in the cultural distortion of what emo means, I can’t bring up my own history without mentioning the copy of Deep Elm’s Emo Is Awesome, Emo is Awful, Vol 1 that I purchased sight unseen after seeing it next to the register while visiting my grandparents for Christmas. Its 19 tracks introduced me to bands like Benton Falls, Red Animal War, Logh, Planes Mistaken For Stars, and The Appleseed Cast, all celebrated emo bands that sound absolutely nothing like mallcore.

And for months, that compilation was locked tight in my Discman, opening my mind to new ideas of what music could do. Sure, pop punk, hardcore, and even numetal had evoked strong feelings in me, but nothing quite as subtle or deep as these tracks. I had had some experience with emo before this compilation (I was a huge fan of The Juliana Theory, Further Seems Forever, and Dashboard Confessional), but there was something about the tracks on Emo is Awesome that felt a bit more raw, maybe even purer.

I say all that because this record makes me feel like I’m back in my grandparents’ basement trying and failing to fall asleep on an ancient couch while the Deep Elm roster plays through my headphones.

From the second I heard the cascading guitar line that opens You Could Be a Cop’s  “Against The Bleeding Skyline,” I was fifteen again, fighting to keep the blanket between my skin and the itch of the upholstery. When “Still The Same” exploded with a burst of guitars and screamed vocals, it hit me the same way that the climax of “Angel on Hiatus” by Benton Falls did when I first heard it.

The Amid the Old Wounds side is more stripped down, but no less raw. His voice is accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, but there are no attempts to emulate Chris Carabba here. His voice never cries out, but there is plenty of pain here, though it is delivered with the calm reservation of a man who has accepted his fate. The songs were written eighteen years ago, and they feel like a portal to the emo shows I attended in high school, as if he’s playing between bands. “A Friend in Need” is neither flawlessly written nor flawlessly performed, but there is something primal at its core that speaks louder than a more polished song could bring. “You’ve Reached The End” almost sounds like the same song we all wrote after learning a few chords on acoustic guitar, but instead of that being a bad thing, it captures all of the purity of passion that is sometimes lost with more virtuosity or songwriting methodology.

In a way, it’s almost surprising that music like this is still being produced. There was something so special about those hidden moments with little-known emo bands that I had long since accepted as lost to time. But I can’t have been the only person with the same feeling, because both You Could Be a Cop and Amid the Old Wounds tap into that spirit with a stark authenticity.