Somewhere around the mid-2000s, the niche styles of math rock and Midwest emo started cross-pollinating, to the point that these subgenre labels would become almost interchangeable. In hindsight, Lava Land, the defining release by Chicago instrumental trio Piglet, seems like a key bridge record, uniting the gossamer guitar webs of second-wave emo cornerstones like American Football with the tunefully hyperactive blurt of Hella, and paving the way for the hybridized sounds of later acts like Algernon Cadwallader and the Brave Little Abacus. What makes the album such a fun listen is its combination of fluency and frantic, youthful energy. Guitarist Asher Weisberg, bassist Ezra Sandzer-Bell and drummer Matthew Parrish play like a single organism, tumbling headlong during more energetic sections and then drifting almost weightlessly through placid interludes. Though these six songs can get dizzyingly complex, each one goes down remarkably smoothly, with bright melodic hooks packed into every oblique twist.