In the late '90s and early 2000s (and today still, to some extent), pop-punk and emo was created in large part by young, straight, white, suburban males whose lyrics tended to be preoccupied with the opposite sex. Some of these bands—like Blink-182, pop-punk’s global poster-child if there ever was one—doled out toilet humor and sensitivity alike. Others on a more subterranean level, like the Promise Ring, took a more artful approach to heartache, their songs riding on exuberant—if cryptic—self-deprecation and geographical metaphors. Along with contemporaries like Jimmy Eat World and Saves the Day, they found moderate success during pop-punk and emo’s second wave, even though much of the mainstream familiarity with the genres came via Drive-Thru Records.

Founded by siblings Richard and Stefanie Reines, Drive-Thru played a distinct role in linking pop-punk and emo together in the minds of casual music fans, despite them being, in many ways, drastically different. Although none of these traits were mutually exclusive back then (and the definition of each genre still varies depending on who you ask), generally speaking, pop-punk thrived on bratty humor, where emo aimed for more of a literary sensitivity. Pop-punk tended to be simpler musically, while emo was more complex in its chord progressions. But for all the differences, Drive-Thru—by marketing both genres’ music right alongside each other—made it apparent that there were similarities, too, most notably in the high currency on lyrics. Pop-punk and emo acts seemed to pen words that were custom-built for scrawling in notebooks and doubling as AIM away messages. Drive-Thru stars like New Found Glory, Finch, and the Starting Line may not have sounded all that alike, but they shared a hyper-emotional writing style that appealed to young listeners around the world.

When Drive-Thru went on indefinite hiatus in 2008, it felt like the end of an era for the second wave. Even with the lingering popularity of genre titans like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Paramore, the type of mid-level, mall-marketed band promoted by the Reines was, to borrow a phrase from MxPx, slowly going the way of the buffalo. Yet over the past few years, emo and pop-punk bands have experienced a resurgence, with Philadelphia’s Modern Baseball being one of the most popular acts.

On the surface, Modern Baseball has something in common with the kinds of bands that populated the Reines’ roster. Their music is driven by pogo-ready chords, hyperactive vocals, and lyrics that—at least in the band’s early days—centered around girls, or, more accurately, not getting girls. But where many second-wave pop-punk and emo songwriters would respond to romantic rejection by shaming the opposite sex, co-frontmen Brendan Lukens and Jake Ewald strive for something more even-handed.

“Hours Outside In the Snow,” from Modern Baseball’s 2012 debut Sports, finds Lukens smarting because a young woman named Erin—a real person who inspired many early Modern Baseball songs—hasn’t reciprocated his attraction. But he stops short of neckbearding and ultimately accepts her decision: “I guess I’ll spend the next few lines hoping and wishing, yet thanking appropriately,” he resigns. There’s a sadness there, but never cruelty. Two years later on You’re Gonna Miss It All, “Rock Bottom” places the romantic hesitation not on the girl, but Lukens’ own self-doubt. And on Modern Baseball's recently released third LP, Holy Ghost, Lukens and Ewald (both 23) tether routine coming-of-age topics to Big Ideas like mortality and mental health. When the two songwriters reflect on the formation of Modern Baseball—now rounded out by bassist Ian Farmer and drummer Sean Huber—they remember aiming for this more thoughtful lyrical approach, even when they were still in their teens.

“There were a lot of people doing pretty cookie-cutter pop-punk,” Lukens says of the music scene in Frederick, Maryland, where he and Lukens started writing songs together in high school. “A lot of ‘I’m drunk in my band’s basement, and this girl just broke up with me and I’m not going to break down what’s emotionally happening to me—I’m just going to shit on her.’”