Future Teens’ 2019 album Breakup Season sounds like the most hurt band on Earth. But the Boston bummer pop quartet returns Sept 23 on Triple Crown Records with ultra-cathartic Self Help, celebrating pandemic-honed coping tools and aching optimism. Self Help is a vulnerable, empathetic, healing wound that sweetens universal anxieties with lovesick melodies, intuitive harmonies, and elevated songcraft recalling indie-pop’s Pitchfork-propelled 2000s heyday. Formed in 2014, Future Teens’ lighthearted, classic pop sensibilities and self-effacing confessional lyrics resonated rapidly and widely, propelling vocalist/guitarist Amy Hoffman, vocalist/guitarist Daniel Radin, drummer Colby Blauvelt, and bassist Maya Mortman from basement shows to extensive touring and widespread critical acclaim. The pandemic initially derailed what was poised to be their breakout year, but proved a self-exploratory creative windfall. Recorded mostly live by Andy D. Park (Death Cab for Cutie, Pedro the Lion, Now Now), Self Help captures Future Teens’ counterintuitively upbeat “mental health bangers” and singular on-stage energy. With standouts sobriety journal “BYOB,” lockdown-induced “Stress Dream,” and album-encapsulating “Team Sports” (featuring Dan Campbell of The Wonder Years), Self Help is Future Teens’ quietly triumphant ode to the power of collective care. “We’re all just looking for a safe place to spiral,” Hoffman concludes on “Team Sports.” “Why not make a team sport out of survival?”