In a column last fall, Pitchfork's Mark Richardson discussed how people tend to talk about a band's youth as if it makes the music more impressive-- and how sometimes, youth's blind conviction really does lead to greatness. It was almost impossible to read about the self-titled debut by Nashville's Be Your Own Pet without hearing the band's members were teenagers, and age is at play again in the title of their sophomore album, the forthcoming Get Awkward. Don't expect many pimples or cracked voices on the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls-referencing "The Kelly Affair", one of four new songs the Thurston Moore-touted twentysomethings have posted on their MySpace. Instead we get the stuff that's been associated with youthful abandon and transgression for decades: sex, drugs, and back-to-basics punk rawk.

Not necessarily in that order. "I'm in a band now," frontwoman Jemina Pearl begins, in brash, yelping Karen O mold, over treblier "Juicebox" guitar picking. On the chorus, the lead guitar nearly quotes, consciously or unconsciously, the Sonics' great, Nuggets-overlooked 1965 single "Have Love, Will Travel", originally penned by "Louie Louie" songwriter Richard Berry, as Pearl continues, "Everybody here parties all the time/ Everybody here's got sex on their mind/ Everybody here is popping pills." Perfunctory acid and grass references follow-- "It could be dangerous," after all. If it's used in a teen movie, wait for the part when the bad girl arrives at the party. Ah, to be young...

Stream:> Be Your Own Pet: "The Kelly Affair"
[from Get Awkward; due 03/18/08 on Ecstatic Peace/Universal]