A friend recently bemoaned the fact that she didn’t “have Ted Leo during high-school.” Anyone who’s seen Ted Leo and The Pharmacists live can attest that many of Leo’s fans are, indeed, adolescents who fervently connect with Leo’s analytical yet accessible style and aw-shucks-everyman persona. The rest of us, many of whom have been following Leo’s career in various incarnations for well over a decade, are drawn to each successive release at least partially because of the sentiment alluded to by my friend’s comment. His songs brim with the hallmark contradictions of youth: optimistic but weary, angry yet sensitive. This dichotomy, nearly impossible to articulate during our teen years, helps explain why some of the most poignant representations of youth come from those now beyond it, requiring a wisdom (or speculation) that doesn’t arrive until much later. Put more succinctly, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists make punk rock for grown-ups without preaching about what it means to be an adult. Candor and sincerity, as it turns out, are not just meant for kids.

The Brutalist Bricks is the band’s sixth album and in many respects echoes Leo’s career-minded track of marrying the best of Weller & Costello without (thus far) succumbing to those artists mid-career indulgences. Songs like “Even Heroes Have to Die” and “Last Days” are testaments to the band’s enduring strengths, reinforcing sonic hallmarks without retreading covered ground. When Leo’s voice hits the opening lines, “When the café doors exploded/I reacted to, reacted to you,” on opener “The Mighty Sparrow,” its booming proclamation is equal parts jarring and welcoming. There’s plenty on The Brutalist Bricks that finds the band outside of its established repertoire. But the album’s deviation from type is subtle, the result of a steady progression as opposed to hoary critical generalizations like “a back to basics approach”or “a more experimental direction.”