Comes Back To You/Was There Ever Unity?

Unity — 2026

“Unity make distortion feel like a surprise, dropping walls of guitar noise into songs that are catchy, vulnerable, and deceptively simple.”

Ten years is a long time to sit with a batch of songs, and Unity spent that decade turning inward. Jeffrey Cheung, the artist behind the band, stitched this together across sessions from 2017 to 2023, yet it plays like one long recording session. I love how the record splits itself in two: the outward reach of Comes Back To You and the gnawing self-doubt of Was There Ever Unity? The foundation is lo-fi emo with a touch of shoegaze mist, and it earns its indie cred with every guitar strum. On “Walk Away,” clean guitar picking suddenly caves into a feedback-soaked wall, and it knocked me down. That sudden shift is what makes Unity stand out. They have a knack for hitting you with blown-out guitars around every corner, much like Superchunk or Sebadoh. Even the distortion can hit Dinosaur Jr. levels, but everything surrounding it, including the vocals, is much simpler. It is a cool dynamic that keeps you coming back for the infectious songs. Then, as you peel back the lyrics, you start to discover that this collection is really a personal diary, which makes the album sink in even deeper.