Annie Nardolilli and Louisa Hall show up to meet me in identical green velvet dresses. The two are always matching — from their earrings all the way down to their shoes — and most of the time that attire includes sequins. But their lovable theatricality doesn’t just manifest in what they wear: it’s also evident in their music.

Nardolilli and Hall are the brains behind Griefcat, a D.C.-based singer-songwriter duo with a flair for musical comedy. (The band’s releases include “Egg Roll” and “I Just Want To Get Inside (Your Bank Account)” …) The two have been making waves in the D.C. music scene since 2019 — some of their videos have reached 1 million views on TikTok — and were recently nominated for five Wammies, the D.C. region’s local music awards. Griefcat, who jokingly refer to themselves as The “Tenacious Double Ds” of D.C., will release a new album on April 19. And if you want a chance to catch them before then, they’re performing a set of shows this spring, starting with one Thursday at Pearl Street Warehouse.

The two are like a couple, finishing each other’s sentences, as they tell the story of how they met. Although they’re both from the D.C. area, they come from very opposite backgrounds: Nardolilli is a Mormon and former sheriff’s deputy while Hall is a lapsed Catholic and a career tech employee.

They first bumped into each other in 2015 at a comedy showcase. But despite both performing comedy at that time, they found they share a love of music, specifically performing comedy-adjacent songs. After that first meeting, they would constantly cross paths, but it wasn’t until 2019 that they decided to join forces.

“I kept running into Louisa for the next four years. And then it was like, maybe we should do this together as a band,” Nardolilli recounts.

“I heard Annie play ‘loving you is like [eating] Chipotle’ and I was like ‘this is it,” Hall adds.

The song would eventually make it onto their first album, self-titled and released in 2020, alongside other catchy tunes such as “Marseille” which aptly rhymes the French city with bidet. The pandemic undoubtedly stunted their plans for world domination (and their first album release party) but it also gave them ample time to work on their new album: Late Stage Capitalism.

The album features one of their more well-known songs, Revolution (Poop at Work) and centers around that theme of how capitalism prevails — and permeates most aspects of life — in the 21st century.

“[It’s about] corporations being corporations, how we’re trying to survive in a system, fight back against the system, but again within that system,” Hall explains.

And while there is thematic cohesion, the two acknowledge their repertoire can be a bit haphazard in terms of styles.

“We definitely bend all sorts of genres while we stick to one main theme,” Nardolilli explains. Case in point: Also on the new album are a country song called “Crypto Bro,” the Meatloaf-inspired bop “Sponsor Us,” and a Sex Pistols-channeling punk rock banger about calculating one’s carbon footprint. “It doesn’t make sense and yet it makes sense,” Nardolilli says. (“Just like capitalism,” Hall adds.)

Their music is so topical because they draw inspiration from daily life and the things that make them laugh, they say.

“The way we tend to write a lot of songs when we do our co-writing is we’ll get together for rehearsal and start playing some chords or one of us will have a stupid idea or one of us will sing something over and over and it just hits and makes us laugh,” Hall says. “We tend to ride that wave until we have a whole song.”

But it’s not just about making themselves laugh — they also want the audience to enjoy themselves.

“If you’re good at it, people laugh,” Hall says. “You get that immediate feedback and validation. When people are laughing, I know they’re having a great time.”

Adds Nardolilli: “There’s something about having the reaction from the audience and being seen. Confirmation that you exist.”

Griefcat doesn’t want to be categorized into one genre. Their comedic bend allows them to perform at both music and comedy venues, though they push back on being labeled a musical comedy act.

“When it comes down to it, we’re a band. We’re musicians. We’re not comedians,” Hall says.

Nardolilli and Hall both play instruments (guitar and ukulele respectively), and they collaborate with lots of other musicians in the studio. They also like to play with instrumentation: trumpet, trombone, violin, and cello are all featured on the new album.

While they tend to perform as a duo, a band sometimes joins them on stage, as it will at an upcoming show at Jammin’ Java for the Late Stage Capitalism release party. “We really care about the way we sound and we take it serious but we also want to be fabulous,” Nardolilli adds “We put a lot of care and time into how we sound and how we present ourselves.”

They do write serious songs, sometimes — their first album included the soulful “Leading Lady” about wanting to be the star of the show and the ukelele-accompanied “Not Fair” about life not going as planned — alongside the aforementioned “Marseille” and the romp that is “Uhh … Where’s My Car.” But for the time being, they’re putting their energy into the sillier songs.

“I think that’s what people need right now, so that’s what we’re really focusing on,” Hall says. “And even though our songs rely on poop jokes, in a lot of the music we do, there is a kernel of truth in it. We are sharing a truth about ourselves, or a truth about the world.”

Griefcat’s second album, Late Stage Capitalism, comes out April 19. They’re playing Union Stage Feb. 8 and at several other venues leading up to an album release party at Jammin’ Java April 21.

This piece has been updated to correct the location of Griefcat’s Feb. 8 show. It is at Pearl Street Warehouse.