When I first heard Sit, Resist in the lobby of a doctor’s office in 2016, I had no clue how firmly I would become tethered to the tracks, but I knew this much: this was something pivotal. At the time, I didn’t often latch onto the music of individual artists, but that day, I needed a refresher on life’s capacity to be anything at all—strange, winding, enormous—and Laura Stevenson’s work became an odd lighthouse to guide me along the outskirts. After listening to Sit, Resist for nearly 10 years, I still become a hooked fish with each return, unable to divert to much other music until its trance has passed.

As the sophomore album from Laura Stevenson & The Cans, Sit, Resist didn’t get much critical attention upon its initial release. In fact, it’s one of only two albums (the other being her first, A Record) that Pitchfork never got around to reviewing. Stevenson herself has admitted to releasing more confident, stable-footed work as her career progressed, and until it was brought to my attention (thanks, Shelby), I had no idea that this album was also beloved by other listeners, especially those who have kept a closer eye on her career.

A friend and frequent collaborator of Jeff Rosenstock (who lent his apartment for some of the album’s early recordings), Stevenson has become a punk-adjacent figure, though no one seems entirely sure where to shelf her: indie-rock, folk-rock, post-punk, folk-pop. In Sit, Resist, Stevenson certainly resists categorization. At many points, the songs on this album feel fantastical or otherworldly—these are shanties and anthems and confessions, haunted houses without shadows and dark, empty streets filled with jazz. No song feels similar to the next, showcasing the variety of Stevenson & The Cans’ capabilities, as well as their willingness to experiment with the tools at their disposal. Songs like “The Healthy One” (a spritely, bell-filled tune about survivor’s guilt in a dying family) and “Red Clay Roots” (with a style reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac on Tusk) offer a bright injection of folk-pop, whereas “Finish Piece” (a weary, reverb-heavy piano ballad that arrives and stomps it feet down early in the album) leans into the style of contemporary indie singer-songwriters of the era.

While I’m too recklessly verbose to linger on each song, there are some lynchpin tunes on this album that speak to the heart and soul of what made Stevenson first stop me in my tracks. The opening tune, “Halloween Pts. 1 & 2” (yes, a reference to the John Carpenter Halloween movies), is lyrically sparse, but the words are piercing and delivered with a careful, metered intensity: “I am underneath; watch me take your life.” Following a few lines on existentialism, the song wends its way through a rich parade of violins and trombones, priming you for the instrumentally immense album ahead, as well as the non-conventional structure that the remaining tracks will roll out. You’ll find that Sit, Resist is wary of choruses, and instead leans into cyclic lines that hammer the nail in further with each repetition, a tactic that works well with its intimate scrappiness.

“Master of Art” is perhaps this album’s most recognizable (and joyous) tune, a young-lust earworm with a snazzy tambourine opening, an addictive guitar line, and the right amount of feel-good sincerity demanded by any catchy love song. Somehow the most structured song on the album despite any true chorus, Stevenson’s unique cadence shines in this track, along with her impressive vocal range. Throughout Sit, Resist, Stevenson deftly shifts between softer crooning and punk-ish hollering, never abandoning the jovial brightness of her natural tone, something that adds to the irony of her lyrics, which tend to dig into life’s darker, more claustrophobic moments.

As much as I appreciate her vocally-centered songs, the album shines on the tracks where the instruments bolster the powerful lyrical undercurrent. The Cans follow Stevenson’s lead with a trust you can almost reach out and touch, sometimes producing a profoundly warm, cavernous sound to comfort her shyer notes, and other times rushing at you with a brash, noisy, clattering accompaniment you can feel in your spine. The glimmer of a tambourine, the groan of a singing saw, the hunger of an accordion—the instruments are an organic extension of Stevenson’s footing, essential limbs to carry each tune over the line. They breathe as she breathes, often celebrating the warmth of her voice rather than the grief of her language.

But even in the tracks where the jaunty instruments take the lead over the subtly gloomy lyrics, Stevenson doesn’t let you borrow The Cans’ euphoria without briefly dangling you over the ledge first. This is clear in “Peachy,” a seemingly bouncy pop tune that riffs on themes of codependency and caretaking in a jolly, upbeat tempo that, like much of this album, provides a satisfying contrast to the darker lyrical throughline. But near the end, “Peachy” slides off the mountain of sound it’s built, dropping into a quiet, reflective, almost muttered phrasing: “I am small, the television’s falling from the second floor, my sister’s hand in mine as we watch it go.” Suddenly, this joyous track leaves you standing alone, bereft on the outskirts. The distinct plummet feels like an apt depiction of trauma’s groundhog emergence, how it can untether you from the present before you know you’ve been displaced.

Despite its general lack of cohesion (a compliment), the final three songs come together to reflect the spirit of “Peachy,” loosening up and revealing the vulnerability sliding under the ice of the preceding tracks. “The Wait”—with its jangly, elated tone—walks the course of Stevenson’s dark lyrical slides: “Now that the alkaline taste in my mouth, it goes through my throat into my nose, and I know it’s going to kill me.” These lines are repeated in “The Weight,” a slower and richer track featuring the line “I know it’s going to kill me” repeated as an off-kilter, ghostly mantra, barely audible by the end of the song. As these songs ferry you through, you enter the transition from a manic impatience to the submergence of depression, the urgency for visibility and the yearning to disappear. The lightness has ended. Stevenson has not just dangled you, but sent you falling.

The culmination of this dive is my personal favorite track, “I See Dark.” This song starts off unassuming, opening with an accordion trill and a cheerfully delivered Alice in Wonderland-esque entrance: “cuffed to the bed, next to my head, swallow the key up, swallow the key, you’ve been swallowing everything.” Soon, the merriment of the song comes to a literal halt, giving way to the roar and tumble of her voice, a plea, almost operatic, as the guitar quakes and shudders behind her. As she sings, “I see dark, and I cannot write it,” she invites you to enter her unique despondency—this is a person who, despite having given words to so much pain and lightness, is unable to assign language to the breadth of this ache. Wrestling with the old phrase that art must come from suffering, the suffering has become too immense for the art, and how plainly she manages to offer this simple, profound truth is enough to knock me over with each listen.

Although “Master of Art” has been far more popular, “8:08” is the strongest track on this album, one that I am compelled to listen to as much as I can stand. Atmospherically captivating and completely unique, its erratic rhythm and blistering guitar first hold you over the idea of the song, its bones and breath, then throw you headfirst into a boil of sound. It’s simply exquisite. While I can (and do) listen to the studio version on repeat, I’m always charmed by this living room recording from when the band’s first run at “8:08”—a far cry from its final version, but equally as balanced with its inventiveness and heart. Watching this, it’s clear that they not only love the music, but also the potential of what the music can and will become. After all this time, every song on this album still feels ready to be a part of a new conversation, no more final than the next note sung.

As far as genre goes, it’s hard to quantify where Sit, Resist lands—with styles spanning across folk, rock, punk, alt-country, and pop, this album is uneven and uncontained, something that might turn off listeners searching for continuity, but its uncertain nature is what keeps me so enamored. It’s raw, noisy, demanding, and evolves with each listen, brought to fruition by the band’s willingness to revel in its fragmented, scrappy nature. In its risk and wonder, I can’t help but celebrate its abnormalities, its loose spokes, its tumbling style; I can’t help but trust Stevenson enough to stand on the ledge with her.