"Punk is so necessary in inciting movement; in mobilising people to care about the truth, whether that truth is straight edge, veganism, or anti-fascism. But it has to be honest, and it has to be urgent. But within that, you also have to lead with love while acknowledging that you're in a fight."

There won't be many album titles this year that peel like an onion once you start to unpack them, but Atlanta emo champs Michael Cera Palin have delivered a cracker with the wonderfully cryptic, delightfully smart 'We Could Be Brave'. At this point, vocalist/guitarist Elliott Brabant is starting to unpick what was once a throwaway line while musing on the broader socio-political movement of the current time.

The truth is, so much of these notions apply to 'We Could Be Brave'. It's honest, unfiltered, beautifully written, and driven by passion and urgency. Yet there's a sense of love for the communities they're from and the relationships they've formed and fostered, which spills forth in every off-kilter riff or pleading vocal.

The title of the record harks back to a conversation between the band (completed at the time by bassist Jon Williams and drummer Jon Buncic, now replaced by Chad Miller) at a one-day festival in Michigan in 2018, when Williams said: "We could be brave and not play a single right note in the set." It's a phrase that stuck with Brabant for the rest of the tour and beyond.

"I just felt like there was so much in that phrase and so much to elaborate on," they say. "There's so much to be brave in the face of – like, 'we could be brave', but how can you be brave? Would we be brave? There's just so much fertile ground there."

Anyone who has seen Michael Cera Palin will know that bravery is central to the group's message. Brabant's not afraid to tackle thorny topics on stage, including politics, mental health and relationships, yet can juxtapose these heavy discussions with some of the most life-affirming and communal sing-alongs and left-field indie-punk/emo hits you can imagine.

"I mean, the world's a motherfucker," they say. "So, if you're gonna bear the late-stage post-capitalist horror that we're currently in, then you have to be brave to stare in the face of that. It takes bravery to say that people don't need to live that misery and that we already have the means to alleviate it. So, you want to empower people and remind them that there is an attainable future and that people can grab it for themselves.

"Empowerment is everything… it's hard to drag your feet when you're dancing, you know? I think that's why I wanted to keep that sentiment of 'We Could Be Brave' around and see it to as much of a conclusion as possible.

Indeed, the notion has had to keep percolating for a while because it has not been a straightforward journey to get to this point. The band went on hiatus in 2018, mere months before the group's cover of Sheryl Crow's 'If It Makes You Happy' went supernova over the internet. Like all the best emo bands – American Football, Algernon Cadwallader, Snowing, Modern Baseball, Mineral etc – their popularity only increased during this break, despite only having a couple of EPs to their name.

Then, of course, a pandemic happened, and Michael Cera Palin found themselves in the somewhat envious position of having time on their side to craft a debut-full length that fully realises all this early promise. Yet such stop-start momentum has also allowed the members of Michael Cera Palin to grow personally and musically, as well as really honing their ability on the road.

"When we went on hiatus, or said we were breaking up, at the time we genuinely believed that," says Elliott. "But then, when we had the absolute luck of the Spotify algorithm smiling on us, we suddenly had a much more substantial audience than any of us had ever had with our music. So, then it was like, what is there to still explore? We owed it to ourselves to see where it would lead.

"But I think, now, we can recognise the fact that, when we were broken up, it was like we were in the middle of a very big metamorphosis; like, we were really coming into our own, not just as creative people and as artists, but also in our own tastes and interests. It was like we were building something from the ground up that was new compared to what we'd done before, and that just made the whole writing process very exciting and incredibly rewarding."

It's a good thing, too, as a lavish amount of time has been afforded to creating 'We Could Be Brave'. The band estimates they spent 12 months writing, 12 months recording and 12 months mastering between 2022 and 2024. The results are often spectacular and demonstrate this was time well spent. Take, for example, the thrashy punk blast of 'Tardy', or the brilliant, knotty emo of 'Murder Hornet Fursona', which straddles the mid-point between the Van Pelt's genre-bending post-emo and Into It. Over It's plaintive, hook-laden emo revivalism. Throughout, ideas of growth, the personal and political find themselves interweaving, mixing accessibility and boundless, effervescent charm with lyrics that need time and space.

Indeed, while this luxury of time was well utilised, Elliott concedes that it also brought challenges, not least of all, the artists' curse, procrastination. In short, when do you know you're done?

"We went into this thinking it'll be done when we finish," they say. "But that's a precarious spot for an artist because there are some people who will worry themselves sick over the same piece for a decade. But I had faith in us.

"It was an interesting period for us. None of us three had ever made a full-length record before, yet our listenership hadn't lost momentum. You say the word luxury, and that's exactly what it was. We are so lucky that so much of our listenership got into us when we were broken up and assumed the project was dead. We haven't had to promote anything, and we're a very grassroots band. We don't have a PR team, so it has been a case of people slowly finding out we're back together.

"You know, a lot of bands have a comeback, and they bust out a reunion record in a year when maybe they should have spent that time getting cosy with the songs they used to play before trying to rediscover that writing voice. However, I would say that, even though we had this luxury, we all felt a bit more pressure because we didn't want it to be done before it was done."

Good things come to those who wait, and that's bang on the money as far as Michael Cera Palin goes. Not too many bands drop their debut record nearly a decade into existence. Michael Cera Palin's fortitude, belief and courage testify to their will to see what they could achieve after fortune smiled on them. It's a second chance they've fully grasped and the perfect epitaph for a bit of bravery.