We don’t become someone else when we grow up, we just learn to mask the parts of ourselves that become socially shunned once we’re old enough “to know better.” So when Alex Luciano — one-half of the cathartic twee-pop duo and Band To Watch Diet Cig — exclaims on the group’s latest single, “I just wanna have ice cream on my birthday,” she isn’t being childishly arrogant, but rather defiant in her honesty. Luciano has a knack for turning such gentle admissions into bludgeoning anthems, as she did most recently with her frustrations at being a woman in a male-dominated DIY scene on “Tummy Ache.” The delightfully titled “Barf Day” is no less moving in its irreverence, embodying what makes the pair’s upcoming debut Swear I’m Good At This so enthralling: the featherweight garage grit, Luciano’s subversive sincerity, and bandmate Noah Bowman’s fist-pumping percussion. “I’ll tell you just what I want,” Luciano sings, delivering the words as a threat to an established order of implicit submission. Against all odds, Diet Cig are coming of age on their own terms. Listen below.

Swear I’m Good At This is out 4/7 via Frenchkiss. Pre-order it here.