Yee Grlz are back with eight punk bangers in about nine minutes.

Following up 2016’s Party Streak, the St. John’s punk quartet have veered slightly from the poppier end of the punk rock spectrum and into a more aggressive and confrontational territory with their latest release, Brainwashed. Though pop punk and hardcore may seem like dichotomous approaches within an open-field genre, they often work in tandem more than one would expect. We’re not referring to the hardcore pop punk that typically sounds like Blink 182 with obligatory breakdowns, but rather a more natural and uncontrived progression that sees contagious choruses and cathartic discord as two barbs on the same hook.

What better way to put your foot down in tumultuous times than with a baring stomp? Besides, it is not like Yee Grlz have taken a drastic stylistic swerve, the take-no-shit attitude has been present since Party Streak, but now some of the poppier sing-alongs have been traded in for more anthemic fist-clenchers.

Yee Grlz come roaring out of the gate with catchiness in tact. While the internalized struggles of Imposter Syndrome are explored with infectiousness and urgency at the album’s half way mark, Freaky Friday trudges into gritty and stripped down hardcore territory before the track list snaps into scene politics and Punk Points with the ongoing roll of punchy punk poignancy.

Yee Grlz Brainwashed is well worth more than nine minutes of your time. So go ahead, listen to it again.

Get the digital stream and download here to tide you over until the tape release on February 16th at the Peter Easton in St. John’s.