The Acorn People are a four-piece rock group consisting of MTSU alums Grace Jermusyk and Quinten Thornton and undergraduates Kris Cagle and Brendan “Rocko” Herr. They celebrated the release of Secrets, their debut album, with a show at Little Shop of Records last year, which is fitting for a band whose sounds harken back to vinyl-weaned rock greats like Led Zeppelin, Joan Jett and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The 10-track album combines Jermusyk’s lyrics with heavy instrumentation from all members for a raw, cohesive project.

Recorded in a home studio not far from MTSU, the album features songs written as solo acoustic numbers but fleshed out into a full band setting. This technique is best shown in the album’s first song “Oh My,” which begins acoustically and explodes into a hard rock track once the first chorus hits. The material’s acoustic origins show up again on “Can’t Get Close Enough” and “Maybe Someday,” the latter of which is a stripped-down, folk-ish ballad that puts Jermusyk’s lyrics front and center before the album shifts to one of its most instrumentally driven cuts, “Monster.”

The four-minute album closer features a strong rhythm led by Cagle, Herr and Thornton on guitar, bass and drums, respectively, with a grunge vibe akin to Stone Temple Pilots’ or Pearl Jam’s rhythm-fueled tracks. If you want to catch up with the band before the release of its follow-up project later this year, Secrets is currently available for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.