2nd Grade 
Rifle through the ranks of the 2nd Grad catalog, and there’s no shortage of dream-drawn pop. Led by Peter Gill, the Philly band have spent the past few years working towards the perfect pop song, and if you’ve ever tumbled into the arms of 2022’s “Teenage Overpopulation,” it might be argued that they’ve done it and then some. In the world of power pop, one song is enough to cement a legacy for a lifetime. It’s a genre built on single collections and the kind of crate digging that’s makes it worth the dust for a hint at a singular gem that grabs the brain and won’t let go. Never ones to settle, though, 2nd Grade keep the catalog charged for the long haul. Their latest not only aims to serve up a perfect pop song, it seeks and succeeds in the service of 20 contenders. Gill goes one step further for the jangle acolytes, tacking on a concept to the wide brush strokes and incessant earworms of Girls & Boys. The album is split, ten to a side of songs that mirror each other; girls on one side and boys on the other. Without breaking a sweat over 3:00, the album pins down sighs like brightly colored butterflies.
While there’s some strum and thrum from the ‘70s class, picking at Petty’s Heartbreakers and rolling Ardent regulars in the mix, 2nd Grade have always felt indebted to the ‘90s lineage of power pop. Girls & Boys tucks into the kind of primary palette bounce that crackled its way through the grunge static, caught hold on the college end of the dial, and snuck into our consciousness though scene-stealing moments in soundtracks of the era. Shadowboxing with ennui, 2nd Grade makes indelible hooks feel not only attainable but plentiful. Each song slips over the next with the kind of charm that never fades, repeat after repeat. Populated by Radio Boys, Cellophane Girls, Rumor Mills, and Motormalls, the record bounds through the speakers in ways that would make Matthew Sweet proud and Robert Schneider blush. Fuzzing and fizzing, the record sinks into the psyche and won’t let go. Never has the band felt so tight, so determined, and so perfectly poised to be the pop heroes we need.
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