Comprising members/former-members of Wavves, the late Jay Reatard’s band, and Big Muff Radio, Cretin Stompers are a holy rock-pop power trio with roots in L.A., Memphis and Brooklyn. Their debut album Looking Forward to Being Attacked, released on Hozac Records, mashes much of what makes Big Muff’s weirdo pop sound collages so awesome with an uptempo garage punk skeleton, made most distinct by (without relying on) a repertoire of alien sounding vocal effects on a handful of tracks.

One of the catchiest tracks on the album, Industro, with a gated reverb effect on the drums and halloween spooky chorus melody, is liable to worm its way into your head and stay there for days. Other tracks occasionally show diverse snippets of influences from rock history new and old. This combined with the lyrical references to adolescent artifacts like haunted houses and testimonies to the inadequacy of words, make this album an index of youthful memories. But it’s not nostalgic, but rather an expression of still living the pleasures that nostalgia by definition, means are lost. This sentiment is perhaps most literally expressed in the song title and lyric “Adult Child,” shouted repeatedly over a grimy guitar rhythm and punchy driving beat.

Sassy pop melodies, crunchy power chord assaults, smooth operating guitar solos, and dabs of experimental strangeness all come together to give this band an optimistic and playful cruising-by-the-beach-blasting-90s-rock-guilty-pleasures sort of confidence. You can snag a vinyl copy and digital download from their Bandcamp, which you should do because it’s unbelievably sexy.