Koyo "Would You Miss It?" Review
There’s something in the water on Long Island.
Would You Miss It? feels like a landmark album. Anticipation for the debut full-length from Koyo has been building since the band released breakthrough single “Moriches”, and subsequently introduced the world to their brand of pop-punk and emo through the lens of a hardcore band. The Long Island quintet released a handful of singles over the two years that followed their stellar 2021 EP Drives Out East, each one seemingly more consequential than the one that preceded it. Koyo used these standalone singles to hone their craft, and the record that follows these tracks more than lives up to the immense hype that has enveloped the young band on their truly meteoric rise.
“51st State” is the perfect opener for this album - fast and impassioned, layered and dynamic, with an immediately gripping chorus that urgently welcomes the listener into Koyo’s world. First single “You’re On the List (minus one)” follows closely behind, and from its call and response passages and timeless chorus, a more impressive track in this sound would be difficult to come by. “Life’s a Pill” shows the band taking a turn towards darker territory, but they pull it off with flying colors - bearing yet another anthemic chorus, despite dabbling in heavier tones.
The thunderous pairing of “I Might Not” and “Flatline Afternoon” shows Koyo shifting gears to some of the post-hardcore tendencies hinted at in “Like a Pill”, the latter boasting a massive breakdown made complete with a menacing feature from Anthony DiDio of Vein.fm that somehow manages to not feel out of place, even though it is notably more intense than anything else on the record. “Anthem” is a self-assured punk track that flies by at a blistering pace, completely unrestrained by conventional song structure. Almost a response to “Anthem” is “Sayonara Motel” - a much more measured and nuanced mid-tempo track propelled by one hell of a guitar riff and yet another earworm hook.
“Message Like a Bomb” picks up the pace again with a massive refrain and a killer feature from Glassjaw’s Daryl Palumbo in the bridge. By this point in the record, it is impossible to deny Koyo’s knack for writing songs that feel like they’ve simultaneously existed forever while never failing to feel fresh, and there is no better example of this than album highlight “What’s Left to Say”. Potentially one of the most straightforward pop-punk cuts on the record, “What’s Left to Say” is a perfect embodiment of catching lightning in a bottle, and very well could be the single best song Koyo has released to date. The album comes to a close with “Postcards” and “Crushed”, the former being an unashamed love song (and a hell of one at that), where the latter boasts an undeniable feeling of triumph to draw this phenomenal debut record to a close.
Would You Miss It? finds Koyo at their best and most self-realized to date - an utterly astounding collection of songs that no other band could have made. Leave it to five guys from Long Island hardcore to create the best pop-punk record of the past few years.
9/10
