Girls & Boys

Since the 2018 inception of 2nd Grade, Philadelphia-based songwriter and producer Peter Gill (also guitarist for the alt-country band Friendship) has conjured a series of spectacular new worlds via the launch pad of 20th century guitar pop, somehow zooming miles past its hallmark tropes precisely by following them to their logical ends. Girls and Boys is 2nd Grade’s newest album and first with Lame-O Records, a collection of twenty songs, none breaking three minutes, replete with irresistible guitar riffs, power chords, frenzied drumbeats and whirlwind melody. Songs of vertiginous complexity that you still can’t stop humming. On Girls and Boys, 2nd Grade repeatedly achieves the perfect pop song’s miraculous trick: making it look easy.