So I was in the record store yesterday flipping through the new releases when I find the new Be Your Own Pet album. In an age where the internet rules all, release dates are broadcast far and wide, and album leaks are expected, it’s very hard not to get some advance warning of an album’s release—and yet here was an album I wasn’t expecting to see for at least a couple more months, sitting in my hot little hands waiting to be purchased.

If you know Be Your Own Pet at all and understand where they came from, Get Awkward probably won’t surprise you very much. Jemima Pearl is a better singer, the edges are a little duller, the melodies are a little more obvious. We’re still nowhere near Avril Lavigne territory, thank goodness, but it’s not quite the half-hour thrash-fest of their 2006 self-titled debut, either. Part of me already misses that earlier incarnation. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for Be Your Own Pet to mellow out as they enter the final stages of teenagehood, and of course they have to figure out how to expand on their basic punk formula sooner or later, but I really wouldn’t have minded just another half hour of bone-shattering shrieks and riffs.

But just because Get Awkward isn’t quite as intense or wilfully adolescent as the band’s first album doesn’t mean it can’t be just as good, so I’ll keep this on heavy rotation for a while longer. After all, with spring fast approaching, there’s nothing better in my collection of recent purchases to shake off the shell of winter dreariness.