When I was a young lad growing up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there was an influential indie rock publication called Milk Magazine. Closely connected to Atomic Records, the city’s premiere vinyl outlet, Milk had a very specific kind of late-1990s musical agenda. That agenda included quite a bit of slowcore. The magazine featured and set up shows for everyone from American Analog Set to Low—not slowcore, but this Milk-promoted Christmastime gig that I witnessed when I was 14 should probably be mentioned here: a triple bill of Alkaline Trio, The Dismemberment Plan, and The Promise Ring—and definitely helped to shape the texture of the city’s rock scene.

Why am I “going long” about a magazine and record store that likely zero percent of all Nina Respectors have heard of and existed over 25 years ago? I’m not sure if I have an actual good reason, but I’ll try: Listening to the Los Angeles band Poor Image’s excellent self-titled album, out now on American Death Records, I am transported back into the dank confines of Atomic, flipping through an issue of Milk while my father waits in the car. It has a specific patina to it. It refers back to a micro-glory age of low-stakes indie music in a way that could only come from a band a few generations removed from the source material. It finds a perfect balance between slowcore and Americana; it incorporates a variety of roots-leaning instrumental flourishes when it needs to; it rocks when it needs to. This is music you can spend a lot of time inside of.