It’s always a bit weird going into an album knowing it’ll be a band’s last. Even before you press play on Hightide Hotel’s Naturally, you know this will be the final thing you hear from this band. It’s their swansong, their grand finale, their closing speech – and one hell of a closing speech.

Naturally takes a bit of everything from Hightide Hotel’s past material and throws it all together. The biggest difference between this and their last traditional album, Nothing Was Missing, Except Me, is that Naturally is less math-influenced (although the title track still brings those noodly riffs we all love). It’s still an emo album, but it’s less American Football and more The Progress. I mean, just listen to “Hello Cruel World” and try and tell me it doesn’t remind you of “US Camera.” But I don’t mean to pigeonhole the album – it’s quite diverse. Songs like “Vertigo Chamber” and “Don’t Need” contain some of the genre’s catchiest hooks of the year (particularly the latter), instrumental “Apollo Silent Groove” is a nice display of the band’s musicality and talent with dynamics, and “An Absence Felt” proves the band can slow things down without losing any of their punch. If anything, they only get more powerful when they’ve toned down, as it’s possibly the best song of Hightide Hotel’s entire career. The strings in the beginning are a beautiful touch to an already-pretty track. It’s the kickstart the album’s B-side, which is the easily better of the two.

Perhaps it’s just that the string of “Don’t Need” into “Naturally” into “Sigh” is the best flowing sequence on the record. Somehow the jump from a punk song to a math song to a song incorporating both elements doesn’t sound at all disjointed on Naturally, or perhaps I’m just enamored with the colossal hooks on all three tracks. But I don’t think that’s it, since the easy highlight of “Sigh” – no, of the entire album – is the bridge, which calls back to that of opener “Hello Cruel World.” It gives the album a nice sense of closure and finality – I guess that’s something this album would need, isn’t it? That’s really a shame, because I’d have loved to know where Hightide Hotel could go from here.