Cleveland punks Heart & Lung never set out to be a “midwest band,” but inevitably the rustbelt bleakness and coping mechanisms found in the dead of winter drinking in basements with friends seeps into the punk rock created there. It’s an ethos that lives in smoke-filled studio spaces littered with bottles of local lager and various bits of equipment that, at any time, may need to be sold to pay the gas bills.

Still, there are wisecracks to medicate the boredom and constant jovial elbows to the ribs of misery you hear echoing in melodies and chords. Undoubtedly, that is why Heart & Lung’s forlorn lyrics are housed within bouncing, upbeat, pop structures, echoing artists such as Off With Their Heads, The Menzingers and the Lawrence Arms.

"You can't fake what the songs are about," idiot/vocalist John Payne explains. "They're still generally like, 'Things are pretty fucked up,' but we're having a really good time being really bummed out."

Finding joy within the bleak and harnessing an honest grip on life’s realities is a recurring theme in the band’s debut album You Wanna Know The Truth? Case In Point: “Hey Man,” a song about cancer that resembles the happiest-sounding song Jawbreaker never wrote. The album opens with a rallying cry from Tom Hamilton, sports-commentator for the Cleveland Indians—whose voice also serves in place of stage banter at the band’s energetic live show—and jets through high-bpm punk with a pop drizzle. On songs like “Wasted” and “Ingenue,” listeners will hear the melodies derived from their previous bluegrass band (yes, a bluegrass band. Pop-punk and mountain music are closer kin than one may expect!) that make Heart & Lung incomparable in the genre. The album is catchy, poppy and staggeringly nihilistic in its explorations of growing up and giving up (“Telecaster”), crumbling relationships (“Don’t Need You”) and political injustice (“1954”).

Ultimately, drummer Nick Patrone points out, the band are creating “what [they] like or want to hear.” They’re a group of longterm friends, playing for the love of playing and continuing to laugh through the blows life deals them.