Fang Island’s view was decidedly positive: its 2010 report first album open And closed with crackling fireworks, two years before other “hell yeah” rockers Japandroids does the same thing on Celebration Rock. But these songs are less interested in recounting a good night out and more in capturing the sound of that warm, endless feeling. When these songs include lyrics, the verses resonate like long-lost folk standards: “They are all within my reach/They are free,” they sing, clearly but with conviction, on “Dreams of Dreams.” “Daisy” evokes Tommy via very few actual words, each verse dissolving into a vowel cluster chant.

The magic of Fang Island lay in this ability to evoke joy in the form of guitar solos and drum rhythms, their silence giving way to individual exuberance. Perhaps that’s why their second and final album, 2012’s Majorfeels like a withdrawal from the group’s mission. Combining unbalanced rhythms and spring-loaded melodies with piano and more narrative lyricism, Major puts into words the emotions that Fang Island’s songs previously only suggested. There is a completeness in these songs, but also a natural limit: it is more difficult to share a collective album in the face of more concrete images, like “Your legs are so full of grace they’re scary.” However, of these three reissues, Major sounds the strongest, with the remaster ripping out the guitars of “Chompers” and the synths of “Asunder” even more.

Backed by an indie rock booster that sounds deliriously far from today’s music industry (I originally discovered them when the panicked synthesizer “Life Coach” landed on a playlist created for Urban Outfitters), Fang Island reflected the enthusiasm of their surroundings. It’s fitting, then, that this reissue includes the band’s last recorded song, “Starquake,” played live countless times but previously only released via limited edition flexi-disc. Written in 2006 but recorded in 2014, the song is a strangely contained summary of the band’s history: a piano gives way to competing guitars that spiral upward like a Guns N’ Roses cover band playing in heaven . The band strings together rhythms as if they were playing the opening of a musical on Fang Island, a dizzying assault that compresses a decade-long career into five dizzying minutes.

The version of “Starquake” featured in this reissue was recorded at Silent Barn, one of many now-defunct New York venues that elevated groups of college friends to national prominence. As Internet archives fade and digital files degrade, it’s easier than ever to lose sight of a time in the recent past when bands could be propelled from living room gigs to opening for the Flaming Lips by some positive reviews online. Santos Party House is now an ax throwing bar and Urban Outfitters currently runs a sale on vinyl copies of 1989. But on these reissues, Fang Island still sounds like a never-ending party, one last round of high-fives for everyone before the lights come up.

Fang Island: Does Not Exist II: The Complete Recordings