You can fault Japanese Motors for many things on their self-titled debut, but you can't accuse them of pushing a product that doesn't actually exist. As fantastical as their depiction of West Coast surfing life is, they're only writing what they know. Frontman Alex Knost is a former pro surfer who appeared in the 2003 surf documentary Step into Liquid while drummer Andrew Atkinson's a former designer for the surf clothing company Hurley. To top it off, they look like the male cast of "The Hills".
As for the actual music, you could attach "West Coast version of-" to nearly any current "garage"-but-not-made-in-a-garage act and be accurate. There's the transparent Strokes rip "Regrets a Paradise", which features Knost borrowing Julian Casablancas' megaphone and pack-a-day habit. Carefree "Single Fins & Safety Pins" takes its cues from labelmates the Black Lips, keeping its sun-soaked guitar parts simple enough to play while drinking a beer. While those cuts are merely underwhelming and escapist, their more in-your-face retro tracks reek of posturing: "Coors Lite" and "B.N.E." are convinced there's still a Jet fan inside each of us. "B.N.E.", with its bluesy chorus of "She wants a brand new everything," gets wise to this whole superficial, materialistic SoCal culture-- an observation that's been made in like a hundred jagillion (I checked) works of art in the last century.
The rest of the album wades in even safer and more comfortable waters. You could peg ballads "Oh Brother" or "Misery & Profits" as doo-wop nostalgia channeled through T. Rex, but the band's beach-bum work ethic can't muster the energy to pull off glam. It's a double-edged sword, because while the band's lazy minimalism deprives them of possessing any real strengths, it at least prevents any Louis XIV-sized missteps. The debut's boring, not awful, but until the band stops sounding like they have a hundred cooler things to do than be in a studio, it's hard to imagine them as anything more than surf muzak.
