2nd Grade: Twenty Sugar-Rush Power-Pop Songs, Ten Girls, Ten Boys

Twenty songs. Ten girls. Ten boys. That's the concept behind Girls and Boys, the new album from Philadelphia power-pop band 2nd Grade, out October 30 via Lame-O Records — on physical formats first, with the digital release following December 4, a deliberately old-school rollout even Stereogum couldn't help but admire.

2nd Grade began in 2018 as the bedroom project of songwriter and producer Peter Gill, who also plays guitar in the alt-country band Friendship. It has since blossomed into a full five-piece rock group with co-frontwoman Catherine Dwyer (of Remember Sports), David Settle, Jon Samuels, and Fran Lyons. After a trio of beloved releases on Double Double Whammy — Hit to Hit (a Stereogum Album of the Week), 2022's Easy Listening, and 2024's Scheduled Explosions — Girls and Boys is their first record for Lame-O, and the label's German distributor summed it up best: songs "of dizzying complexity, that you nonetheless can't stop humming."

What they sound like is pure sugar-rush power pop, standing on the shoulders of the canon. Stereogum heard Alvvays revved up with the dreaminess scraped off in "Anywhere Girls"; their lineage runs through Guided by Voices, Big Star/Alex Chilton, and The Beach Boys, with handclaps, harmonies, and big riffs stacked on top of deceptively tricky songwriting. Dwyer — who sings lead on "Anywhere Girls" — put it perfectly: Gill's greatest trick is "disguising his complex compositions under layers of sugar and fizzy distortion." Add what she called "a little ABBA-worship countermelody" and you've got the whole deal.

Live, the band is a blast: they cut an Audiotree Live session that came out earlier this year, proof these micro-pop anthems — most clocking in under three minutes — land just as hard in a room as they do on the record.

Start here

• "Cellophane Girls" — the lead single, closing out the Girls half with a hook you can't shake.
• "Anywhere Girls" — Dwyer takes lead vocals; the Blitzkrieg Bop intro is an instant win.
• "Fender Boys" — the third single and the first blast of the Boys half, all two minutes and eleven seconds of it.

Pre-order the limited blue vinyl on Bandcamp to get three tracks now, with the full twenty landing on release day.

Where to follow

• Bandcamp: 2ndgrade.bandcamp.com