You know, people tend to paint with a broad brush when it comes to emo music: everything’s twinkly, every singer is a pathetic mess, and everything happens in a basement that smells like sweat and beer. The band names are bad, and the song names are even worse, but you know what? It’s fun, and there’s a surprising amount of community and camaraderie to be found within those beer-soaked basement walls.

On many levels, the forthcoming EP from Customer Service is textbook emo. Look no further than the cover depicting four adolescent figures climbing a grassy hill beneath a bridge. It’s all very Everynight Fire Works or For the first time. Despite all the classically emo signifiers being shot up like flares, “and it feels” is a much more finely crafted piece of music than you would expect from the genre in 2025.

Like the latest from red sun, the song starts with raw vocals and steady guitar before opening up to some punchy pop-punk riffage. Billy Mannino (Oso Oso, Macseal) mixed and mastered everything, lending Customer Service the same sunny, feel-good vibe we’ve come to expect from the music coming out of Mannino’s Queens-based studio.

Even with a bouncy rhythm section, gang vocals, and a neat little instrumental breakdown at the end, “and it feels” hones in on a type of longing that’s not often explored in emo. While most of this genre is unrequited pining or grappling with feelings of inadequacy and rejection, this song captures what it’s like to find that connection and then be forced to exist apart from it.

Lead singer Matt Cheverie has found someone they adore, which is already a step further than most emo singers ever get, but the world doesn’t stop just because you’ve found love. Obligations still exist, external forces still peel you apart, time and distance still eat away. Despite being forced to exist in this indifferent reality, Cheverie sings about the kind of devotion where you obsess over every freckle on someone’s face – a powerful motivator.

Halfway through, the song hinges on a beat where Cheverie sings, “I should’ve stayed when you’d asked me to / My bed’s too big without you,” a simple and catchy sentiment that’s repeated a few times then capped off by a big gang vocal rendition. As this longing takes hold, the band launches into a phenomenal bit of push-pit riffage that feels absolutely undeniable. Much like the kind of love Customer Service is singing about, the music video is just as infectious, showing the Halifax band shredding their instruments in an appropriately wintery scene, goofing around, and singing along to every word.

The rest of the EP, to you, after 2000 years, has an appropriate 2/14 release date, a three-pack of indie-emo songs guaranteed to make your Valentine’s Day better or worse, depending on what you need. For now, “and it feels” is here to count every freckle on your face until your bed doesn’t feel quite so big.