If you’ve ever been into so-called alternative music, at some point you’ve probably played the printing off the Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut. It’s like the evergreen starter kit for odd kids. For the band, it must be a blessing and a curse to have an album so ubiquitous; everyone knows and loves that record but forgets they released another seven after that one. Minus a brief hiatus in 1987, the band chugged along until 2009 when they split up. However, two out of three members—singer and guitarist Gordon Gano and bassist Brian Richie—buried the hatchet and hit the road again in 2013. It seemed like they were content to gig playing the hits and not worrying about making a new record, but then a four-song EP, Happy New Year, appeared last year for Record Store Day. With the stage set, the Femmes have released We Can Do Anything (PIAS Recordings), their first full-length since 2000’s Freak Magnet.

It’s an odd position to be in. Having gone so long without anything new, there’s an element of reintroduction. Towards that end the band has returned to basics. If you dig into the Violent Femmes’ catalog, you’ll see various attempts by the band to diversify their sound, but nothing really stuck. We Can Do Anything unapologetically leans into nostalgia for the first record. Although it was former Dresden Dolls’ drummer Brian Viglione joining Gano and Richie (he has since left the band), the classic Violent Femmes formula is intact: acoustic guitar, stand-up bass, and a snare drum getting the beejesus beat out it with a pair of brushes. There’s some additional instrumentation—a little accordion, a flash of electric guitar, and a grab bag of instruments from the band’s live auxiliary unit, the Horns Of Dilemma—but it’s generally the sound you know and love.

Surprisingly, though, the album sometimes skews a bit too young. There’s nothing particularly wrong with a song rife with masturbation double entendres (“Foothills”), but it seems like someone might pop out and ask, “Ya get it?” Then there’s “I Could Be Anything,” which feels like a strange demo for a discarded children’s album. But We Can Be Anything gets it right when it taps into universal longing. Songs like “What Do You Really Mean” wouldn’t sound out of place alongside a classic Brian Wilson composition. Not every song hits that mark, and some songs seem like throwaways, but one could imagine that with some slightly different sequencing the weaker songs might have been masked. Overall, it’s a respectable return from a band that could easily have rested on its laurels.