Surfer Blood might have set all future expectations a bit high for themselves with their 2010 debut album Astro Coast. The band’s immediate knack for hypnotizing hooks (“Floating Vibes” has been stuck in my head for about three years now) and a surprise cleanliness coupled with generally buzz guitars was impressive — very impressive. That was 2010 during a spike of beach-rock craze and Surfer Blood was leading the pack. It’s been three years since that release and finally the band has given us a new album to play to. Surfer Blood released Pythons June 11 on Warner Bros. (a pretty major label for a supposedly pretty indie band). Yes, Surfer Blood set very high and perhaps irreproducible expectations with their debut and Pythons might not be Astro Coast, but it’s also not exactly a disappointment.

Pythons opens with “Demon Dance” in which front-man JP Pitts screams a bit. It’s a bit surprising at first to hear, amidst a generally pop-driven song, to hear Pitts make the transition from melodic vocalist to screamer, but it’s so well produced (credits here to producer Gil Norton, who has also worked with Pixies and Foo Fighters) that it doesn’t feel unnatural and when the effect is repeated on “Weird Shapes” we can embrace the band’s new approach to edginess.

The most single-ready song might be “Say Yes To Me,” which is one of the few songs on the album that can’t easily be compared to another band who Surfer Blood obviously draws inspiration from (for instance, “Demon Dance” sounds a bit — or a lot — like Weezer). The guitar riff that introduces the song is catchy and Pitts quickly leads us into the chorus, which is a clever strategy for a hooking song. The verses are short and the bridge comes quickly. It’s actually one of the shortest tracks on the album, but it’s not the track’s brevity that makes it so great. Rather, the speedy momentum reminds us of the youthfulness that drew us to Surfer Blood in the first place.

Pythons is not Astro Coast, but it has some great songs that can give us hope for the present and future of Surfer Blood. While the interim between the band’s two albums might have felt like an eternity, it might have been worth a longer wait to spruce up the tracks that didn’t live up to our very high expectations of what this band is capable of.

The stunner tracks, however, are worth the listen; Pythons is available on the band’s official website.