Over the past decade, few artists have embodied the unbridled freedom of punk like Skating Polly. Formed when stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse were just 9 and 14, the Oklahoma-bred band have channeled their chameleonic musicality into a sound they call “ugly pop,” unruly and subversive and wildly melodic. With Kelli’s brother Kurtis Mayo joining on drums in 2017, they’ve built a close-knit community of fans while earning the admiration of their musical forebears, collaborating with icons like X’s Exene Cervenka and Beat Happening’s Calvin Johnson, touring with Babes In Toyland, and starring as the subject of a feature-length documentary. Their songs journey from art-punk to noise-rock to piano-driven power-pop, matching that musical complexity with a sharply honed narrative voice and an unfettered emotional truth, embracing combustible emotionality and shifting from devastating to exhilarating to gloriously cathartic.