There are a few musical tropes that never get old. Things like jangling clean guitars and stark post punk bass lines, gauzy waves of guitar fuzz and reverb, and—for the purposes of this review—angular guitar riffs, punishing drums, and hooks sung through ragged vocals. It’s the kind of sound most likely pioneered by Fugazi and carried by Quicksand, Jawbox, Thursday, Metz, and others.

But no matter how obvious the threads of the influence, when this sort of thing is done well, it is satisfying in a way that I can’t quite describe. And as far as 84 Tigers is concerned, this is about as close to the Platonic ideal that you can get.

The hurricane of noise brought by this power trio might be guessed by its pedigree: Mike and Ben Reed are core members of underground emo heroes Small Brown Bike, and Jono Diener has long drummed for Flint punk rockers The Swellers. And where there have been glimpses of this sort of post hardcore that is equal parts acerbic and infectious, neither project has ever hit a purer mixture of those two moods without softening either one.

Time in the Lighthouse is an unforgivingly aggressive record. Guitars are razor sharp and spend much of their time playing dissonant lines in a higher register. The bass guitar is thick and overdriven, filling in the space of the missing rhythm guitar without losing the low end. The drums drive forward with the fury of a chariot rushing into battle. Vocals are thoroughly ragged, half-shouting melodies over the storm of noise made by the instruments.

But for all of its violence, it’s a deceptively catchy record. The hooks might be designed to lose your voice to, but they’re as irresistible as anything on the top 40. Multiple times through my listen (through the bedroom stereo as my wife and I sequester ourselves out of the way of the duct cleaner working downstairs) I caught myself (and my wife) involuntarily bobbing my head, occasionally humming along—even on the first or second listen. The melodies are that infectious—anthemic without all of the pedestrian connotations that so frequently accompany that descriptor (I blame Coldplay).

In a lot of ways, it feels similar to the Plosivs record from earlier this year, though more in spirit than in sound—and that is a good thing. Both are records that offer uncompromisingly blistering punk sonics to contagious singalong choruses without ever feeling divided against themselves. And I’m not sure you can ask for more than that.

Time in the Lighthouse is out now through Spartan Records.

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