Get Awkward

The teenaged angst of this Nashville quartet’s debut has morphed only in its confident sound for the 2008 follow-up Get Awkward. Tunes such as “Bitches Leave,” “You’re A Waste,” and “Food Fight” aren’t much for rhetorical eloquence, but they do rock with a manic intensity that resembles a band running on a treadmill paced several miles too fast. This is punk rock played the way it was meant to be played: abrasion above all else. This crazed atmosphere means Pet constantly sound like they’re playing catch-up, rushing guitar riffs to the finish line. Their possessed lead singer, Jemina Pearl, ranges from declarative screams to hysterical whelps at the top of her register, resembling X Ray Spex’s Poly Styrene and Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein at their most emotionally tormented -- or just highly excited. There’s a palpable joy in the mock football chants stalking “The Beast Within” and “Bummer Time.” “Heart Throb” is playfully adolescent. “The Kelly Affair” and “Zombie Graveyard Party” resemble a B-movie’s perfect soundtrack.