This quartet brings back the winsome, light, yet dog-eared scruffy pop of the Blake Babies; Cecil Seaskull's voice even bears small resemblance to the young Juliana Hatfield. Yet, what makes Nerdy Girl fresh is Seaskull's lyrics. She sings so nonplussed it's hard to notice how boldly she tackles relationship complexities. The first two songs are startlers: "Casa Nova" could have been just another sad post-breakup lament if it weren't for the disarming uncertainty as to what it is she wanted in the first place. Likewise, "Hate Me" finds her submitting, in a mixture of shame and confused arrogance, to the scorn of a friend whose boyfriend she has stolen; it's a mix of panicked rationalization ("He never loved you anyway/You deserve better") and helpless, veiled self-hatred. The other 11 songs follow similar tunnels, burrowing into the unexplored, gray areas of human feelings, making Nerdy Girl anything but nerdy. If you're not much for words, you can groove to sweet tunes such as "Weed." But there's a war of the brain and heart going on underneath those melodies, which signifies even more.