The magic of Worriers lies in their ability to re-write their identity through a political lens. Their songs may sound like prototypical punk, but the ideas that they convey through this medium are, in many cases, issues that a lot of contemporary punk bands standing remotely close to the spotlight wouldn’t feel comfortable weighing in on. A record like Imaginary Life takes the notion that “the personal is political” and shoves it down doubtful onlookers’ throats in songs about gender binaries like “They/Them/Theirs” and police abuse in “Yes All Cops.” But Worriers enmesh what some people might consider a radical stance with lucid songs about being young and alive and searching for your space in the world. Small, anxious moments jut out of punctual lyrics about issues-at-large: “You loved me like a sibling that you hate a little bit.” Imaginary Life is an important record because it asserts that you can claim all of these left-of-center identifiers in your music — a queer activist concerned with pressing political issues — and still worry about love and loneliness and paying the rent, making it ever more difficult for skeptics to classify you by what you are not. That in itself is revolutionary.

Imaginary Life is out 8/7 via Don Giovanni.