How often can you say that a band is so good at their genre that they would only water down a record by adding in a ballad? Barely Here is the blistering sophomore effort from Long Island hardcore band, Koyo, and they do what they do best by charging through ten melodic punk rock tracks with absolutely no ballads to be found. The second LP from Koyo sticks to the basic theme of wanting to find human connections at a time when attention spans seem to be at their shortest. Barely Here was produced by longtime collaborator Jon Markson (Drug Church, Drain, The Story So Far), and features two guest spots in the sequencing from Sammy Ciaramitaro of Drain and Marisa Shirar of Fleshwater. “I think we’d learned so much about our process from making Would You Miss It? that we knew exactly what we wanted going into this one and it came together with more of an instinctual kind of magic to it,” explains lead vocalist Joey Chiaramonte. “A lot of bands think their second album has to be this magnum opus epic that sews so many things together, and I think we’d actually taken more of that approach with our first LP. So with Barely Here we wanted to do the opposite of that trajectory–we wanted to refine our strengths instead of doing this purposeful departure. It’s a snapshot of what our band is in its most no-frills, perfected form.” I couldn’t agree more with Chiaramonte and his bandmates’ approach to their second full-length record, and it pays off widely on Barely Here.