Here’s a powerful combo: earnestness and exuberance. That’s also a mix of feelings many of us might struggle to keep up with as the pandemic’s death toll seems eternally rising, politics are dredging up some disgusting human behaviors and philosophies, and millions are struggling to find employment. And all this is while the media blends it all up and throws it on all of our screens like some kind of twisted Jackson Pollack painting. So some sincere goofiness would feel glorious right about now. 2nd Grade, a power-pop group from Philly led by Peter Gill (formerly of Free Cake For Every Creature), didn’t plan for a pandemic, of course, but they have the goods we need right now in heaps and heaps, and they offer it up in their full-length debut Hit to Hit, out on Double Double Whammy.

“In order to be honest, you almost have to make an effort to be funny at times in art,” Gill said in the press work leading up the release of Hit to Hit, and lyrically the album leans into that belief like some kind of force of nature. “W-2”, the opening track, jumps right in with a blast of absurd, comedic visions about… what else but filling out a 1099 tax form, of course. The second track “Trigger Finger” proclaims, “we live in a punk rock world” directly after pondering if the teacher grades on a curve because the narrator has been sleeping through classes. We can all only hope for such a joyful expression of irreverence in any of our own lives. Later, “Shooting From the Hip” is a smile put to chords and words, simply put. And the album has 21 (!) more tracks to go from there, loaded with more playfulness than your last Zoom happy hour by far.