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