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2ND GRADE
Girls and Boys(Lame-O Records)
Add date: 11.3.2026
Release date: 10.30.2026
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When Chopin composed his series of mazurkas, pieces based on their namesake traditional Polish dance, contemporaries correctly identified that he had exceeded his source. Chopin used the mazurka form not as material to tweak and innovate, but as a creative launch pad, a set of rules somehow both rigid and capacious, with which he could conjure an entirely new world.
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 trappings and conventions 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.
The tracklist adheres to a remarkable concept: ten songs entitled “(x) girls,” and another ten of “(x) boys.” As always, 2nd Grade achieves a perfectly balanced relationship to the rock n’ roll trope it engages with: critical yet sincere, unserious yet reverential, nostalgic yet brand new. Most songs at least mention their title subjects (e.g., “Been around long enough to know / Not to go out with Rehoboth boys,” or “No such highway unfurls / In electric days of flight school girls”) but don’t go much further. The frame is generative, not limiting — a way to talk about people.
The record’s coed theme also reflects a development in 2nd Grade’s vocal assignments: half of the songs are sung by guitarist Catherine Dwyer (Spring Onion, Remember Sports). Dwyer’s and Gill’s overlapping alto and tenor might at times be confused for each other, an effect mirroring the lyrical bombardment of fantastical statements and hazy sense of self. In addition to vocals and guitar, Dwyer led the tracking and production of the album alongside Gill, with Jack Washburn (Remember Sports) also contributing on various instruments. The record was mixed by Julian Fader and mastered by Ian Farmer (Modern Baseball).
On Girls and Boys, Gill’s writing reaches a sublime level of surreal poetic affect, in which words are loosed from their referents, only to be pulled back in by profound one-liners and arcane cultural notes. The opening lines to “Radio Girls” sound like familiar metaphoric lyricism; “You view it all through airfield eyes / In the almanac of bruises / I sharpen sticks and check my six / Every time the home team loses,” but there’s no puzzle of meaning to solve, just the pleasure of a lived-in style, a poetics ruled by "psychedelic short bursts of color,” punctuated by squalls of scratched-out guitar.
Gill still lets us in sometimes, with lyrical homages to his heroes including Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. Left-field 20th century personalities Oliver Reed and Marco Pierre White make appearances, and the storied drumkit company referenced in the title of “Slingerland Girls” mirrors the first track of side B, “Fender Boys.” While the lyric sheets contain little that one could mistake for autobiography, a clear echo of Gill’s life can be heard in “Fender Boys,” a song that both romanticizes and pokes fun at the touring musician’s world: “Old friends and flames / And former relations / Are all scattered to the wind / The last of the big spenders / Slamming it out on Fenders.” Like plenty of great writing, the funniest bits are also the saddest, such as the repeated refrain of “Glacial Boys:” “And the way I feel / Has mass appeal / Oh yeah.” More metacommentary on the singer’s purpose, clever, and still always sung with sincerity.
Elsewhere, “Cellophane Girls” jokes brilliantly about a speaker wounded and confused: “I saw you torturing / A voodoo doll that looked just like me / If I might bend your ear / It says right here you should be nice to me,” and later, “They put me in the zoo / And then they kicked me right back out of it / For teaching the kangaroos / A few guitar chords and the alphabet.” Lines are sung quickly, a torrent of images as overwhelming as the modern world, and as paralysis-inducing: “There’s so much to discern / Every which way I turn / Action ‘neath the microscope / Trouble in the Hubble / Another year in the bubble / Standstill on a slippery slope” (“Anywhere Girls”).
For 2nd Grade, a half-century of power pop and underground weirdo songwriters is more than enough material to build a new world. It only follows that Gill’s writing would evolve vibrantly along the edges, a bizarro Tom Petty, taking a mantle worn in beer-soaked basements and rock clubs across the country by the likes of Robert Pollard, Linda Smith, Outrageous Cherry, and Bill Fox. Surreal motion of mind is a fitting logic for a band that has always navigated with childlike wonder, exploring the beauty and frustration of a soul catching its breath, just trying to make its way through.
Photo Credit: Justin Wendler
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Lame-O Records
Spotify
Tidal
YouTube
When Chopin composed his series of mazurkas, pieces based on their namesake traditional Polish dance, contemporaries correctly identified that he had exceeded his source. Chopin used the mazurka form not as material to tweak and innovate, but as a creative launch pad, a set of rules somehow both rigid and capacious, with which he could conjure an entirely new world.
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 trappings and conventions 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.
The tracklist adheres to a remarkable concept: ten songs entitled “(x) girls,” and another ten of “(x) boys.” As always, 2nd Grade achieves a perfectly balanced relationship to the rock n’ roll trope it engages with: critical yet sincere, unserious yet reverential, nostalgic yet brand new. Most songs at least mention their title subjects (e.g., “Been around long enough to know / Not to go out with Rehoboth boys,” or “No such highway unfurls / In electric days of flight school girls”) but don’t go much further. The frame is generative, not limiting — a way to talk about people.
The record’s coed theme also reflects a development in 2nd Grade’s vocal assignments: half of the songs are sung by guitarist Catherine Dwyer (Spring Onion, Remember Sports). Dwyer’s and Gill’s overlapping alto and tenor might at times be confused for each other, an effect mirroring the lyrical bombardment of fantastical statements and hazy sense of self. In addition to vocals and guitar, Dwyer led the tracking and production of the album alongside Gill, with Jack Washburn (Remember Sports) also contributing on various instruments. The record was mixed by Julian Fader and mastered by Ian Farmer (Modern Baseball).
On Girls and Boys, Gill’s writing reaches a sublime level of surreal poetic affect, in which words are loosed from their referents, only to be pulled back in by profound one-liners and arcane cultural notes. The opening lines to “Radio Girls” sound like familiar metaphoric lyricism; “You view it all through airfield eyes / In the almanac of bruises / I sharpen sticks and check my six / Every time the home team loses,” but there’s no puzzle of meaning to solve, just the pleasure of a lived-in style, a poetics ruled by "psychedelic short bursts of color,” punctuated by squalls of scratched-out guitar.
Gill still lets us in sometimes, with lyrical homages to his heroes including Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. Left-field 20th century personalities Oliver Reed and Marco Pierre White make appearances, and the storied drumkit company referenced in the title of “Slingerland Girls” mirrors the first track of side B, “Fender Boys.” While the lyric sheets contain little that one could mistake for autobiography, a clear echo of Gill’s life can be heard in “Fender Boys,” a song that both romanticizes and pokes fun at the touring musician’s world: “Old friends and flames / And former relations / Are all scattered to the wind / The last of the big spenders / Slamming it out on Fenders.” Like plenty of great writing, the funniest bits are also the saddest, such as the repeated refrain of “Glacial Boys:” “And the way I feel / Has mass appeal / Oh yeah.” More metacommentary on the singer’s purpose, clever, and still always sung with sincerity.
Elsewhere, “Cellophane Girls” jokes brilliantly about a speaker wounded and confused: “I saw you torturing / A voodoo doll that looked just like me / If I might bend your ear / It says right here you should be nice to me,” and later, “They put me in the zoo / And then they kicked me right back out of it / For teaching the kangaroos / A few guitar chords and the alphabet.” Lines are sung quickly, a torrent of images as overwhelming as the modern world, and as paralysis-inducing: “There’s so much to discern / Every which way I turn / Action ‘neath the microscope / Trouble in the Hubble / Another year in the bubble / Standstill on a slippery slope” (“Anywhere Girls”).
For 2nd Grade, a half-century of power pop and underground weirdo songwriters is more than enough material to build a new world. It only follows that Gill’s writing would evolve vibrantly along the edges, a bizarro Tom Petty, taking a mantle worn in beer-soaked basements and rock clubs across the country by the likes of Robert Pollard, Linda Smith, Outrageous Cherry, and Bill Fox. Surreal motion of mind is a fitting logic for a band that has always navigated with childlike wonder, exploring the beauty and frustration of a soul catching its breath, just trying to make its way through.
Photo Credit: Justin Wendler