Mr. Peaked In High School

Bea Miller’s third album tumbles out of the gate, with grand-piano arpeggios folding in on themselves until the pop agitator announces herself on “born to lose”: “I would never shower if it wasn’t for my roommates/Haven’t left the house in so long/Pretty sure it’s Tuesday,” she deadpans, forceful drums trying to snap her haze. Mr. Peaked in High School has the kind of pent-up energy that’s appropriate for someone’s first album in eight years. After writing the New Wave rave-up “past my prime,” an expression of her frustration over feeling like she was “still a child but... out of time,” Miller called pop wizard Justin Tranter (Chappell Roan, KATSEYE), and the pair dug in. The result is a brash, feisty album full of anthems for misfits, like the confessional “bad person” and the anti-sad-girl manifesto “depressed on the internet”—and it ends with the frenetic “PARTY,” where Miller tries to cast off her troubles and dive into hedonism.