Breathe Owl Breathe is Micah Middaugh, Trevor Hobbs, and Andréa Moreno-Beals. Together they live in a cabin in rural Michigan, which means it must be getting pretty cold there this time of year; poised to just get colder. Their new album is called Magic Central and it’s a righteous title as the album is quite magical. But perhaps a better descriptor is unexpected.

Influenced by late 90s emo, prior to its mass popularization, Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate) brings back the genre’s best traits. Lacking the whiny “pity me, I’m depressed” elements of what would soon follow, this band reaches back to the greats like Appleseed Cast in their early days and, in particular, Mineral. This is all readily available information; true to the genre, they wear their influences on their sleeves. Like these influences, the instrumentation is a fairly low-key rendition of highly melodic post-shoegaze mixed with flat, …