Seacats, Seacats (out now, Fin Records, seacats.bandcamp.com)

You know that teen movie from the ’90s—the one that opens on the first day of senior year at a nameless, open-air California campus brimming with apathy and statutory-questionable sexual energy? The one with Jennifer Love Hewitt? “Wrecked,” the first track on Seacats’ self-titled album, is the song playing during that opening scene. This record is anachronistic for all the right reasons, an exhibition of casual self-hatred that you thought died with the Clinton presidency. “Wrecked” is a scuzzy and stoned song of bad romance driven by a bass line the band all but credits Weezer for, until some nifty song-crafting sends it into a spacey jam. Indeed, Seacats is hyperconscious that it’s treading on well-trod sonic turf, and responds by not allowing any song to go more than 20 seconds without a surprise synth solo or soaring interlude. Musical craftsmanship aside, Seacats’ lyrics are suspect. “Ur New BF” is a ballad about a relationship that must be true-to-life, so painfully literal is the story. I steal a friend’s line when I say that Seacats has a Kelso-sized chip on its shoulder, a reference to the band’s clearly stated disdain for the rural area from which they hail. As Mike Davis sings on “Firewood”: “I’m so sorry/I don’t spend my time chopping firewood/I’m so sorry/I don’t take pride in the size of my truck.” But even where the lyrics falter, they are endearing, and the album as a whole is thoroughly so.