The Boston five-piece People Like You formed in 2014, pulling together various musicians from the city’s house show circuit. Their jazz-swept emo rock is clearly indebted to Tim and Mike Kinsella’s projects, and most of their tracks crash with the manic intensity of Joan of Arc, while others drift gently like American Football. However, it’s in guitarist Chris Lee-Rodriguez and pianist Michi Tassey's lyrical subjects that People Like You find their own voice within the emo catalog.

“Variations on an Aria” is an ode to Puerto Rico, where Lee-Rodriguez’s mother hails from, and it attempts to understand the sense of loss and disconnection that children of immigrants often deal with. "Hold me so close/ To a land that I don't know/ I've seen so many/ Stars that I can't let it go," Tassey sings. Cascading horns stitch together warmly while twinkling guitar lines recreate that feeling of loneliness. It's an exercise in wondering how you fit in—a theme that all emo depends on, and that People Like You portray with a distinctly wise point-of-view.