If ever there was a band to take on the likes of the Beach Boys or Metallica for the accolade of having a moniker that most sonically embodies their soul and substance, it would be Surfer Blood. Put simply, Astro Coast is the perfect summer record; sun-drenched, breezy and uncomplicated, awash with visions of beach campfires under the stars and hedonistic youth. It sounds like music for surfers made by surfers but if blog-lore is to believed, these Floridians don’t catch the waves themselves – theirs is more conceptual style over lifestyle.

Faux beach bums or not though, its Astro Coast’s big-hearted honesty and immediacy that really makes this album work. Take the clean but classic rock of first single ‘Swim’, a song that boasts such a huge chorus it’s impossible not to engage in a modicum of Tarzan-like behaviour, the pumping of a fist or beating of the chest with each triumphant ‘Swim to reach the end’ shambolically half-shouted by singer John Paul Pitts. Its messy energy threatens to diminish the remaining tracks by comparison - but while undoubtedly a highlight, it would be unfair to suggest it’s the highlight.

Most of the tracks on this album would work well as singles, never mind as floor fillers down at Club NME, and no more so than ‘Fast Jabroni’, saturated with reverb and shimmering infectiousness, or the slightly elegiac yet radiant chimes of ‘Floating Vibes’. But it’s ‘Twin Peaks’, with its clattering opening, echoey vocals and 50’s American diner aesthetic that’s the most ‘surfer’ of the ten songs and the one that best sums up the band’s sonic direction.

However it’s also the moment that best illustrates their one exasperating flaw. After breaking into a suspiciously Vampire Weekend-sounding calypso groove, ‘Peaks’ then explodes gawkily into a fuzzy pure-Weezer chorus. “Why Is everything a chore, I'm too young to be defeated/Let's make fun at the video store, with Blue Velvet and other titles” Pitts laments between layers of Beach Boys harmonies - and for a moment he could be Rivers Cuomo.

Yep, it almost seems at times that Surfer Blood want to sound like anyone other than Surfer Blood. ‘Take It Easy’ continues the afro-beat vibe but again it winds up sounding like a pastiche of Vampire Weekend, and not even a subtle pastiche at that. And the problem with emulating a band as distinctive as those prepstersis thatthere ain’t no way its gonna to go under the radar.

But it doesn’t stop there. Pavement, Pixies, hell even the vaguest whiff of Interpol on ‘Matronix’, make it onto Astro Coast, with only instrumental ‘Neighbourhood Riffs’, the brilliant ‘Catholic Pagans’ and the two longest songs on the album – ‘Anchorage’ and ‘Slow Jabroni’ - sounding simply like the band themselves. But the these two also happen to be the most underwhelming songs on the album, and do Surfer Blood sound like that? No we don’t think they do.

There’s no doubt this band have a remarkable deftness with creating great hooks, and that, along with Astro Coast’s instant likeability, is proof of just how brilliant they could be once they’ve figured out their own identity. After all, we know already what their sound-checked co-stars sound like, now we want to hear what Surfer Blood sound like.