Early-’80s New Wave pop produced some of the most likable songs ever written. And it’s great that this Texas-based combo wants to revisit that tradition, but they mix their XTC with a little too much Blink-182 punk-pop fizz. The album’s party-hearty first few tracks are hard to forgive—is there anything drearier, or stiffer, than a band exhorting listeners to “rock” (“Fifteen Minutes to Rock”) with all the thinly disguised maladroitness of an anxious party host or 10th-rate pep squad, rather than, in fact, simply rocking? But much of the album’s last half, if flawed, is worth taking seriously, like the bitter “Over,” the vocal harmonies on “Doves,” and “Circle”—an ambitious nine-minute long attempt at Dismemberment Plan-ish abrupt punk/funk.