With a title outright declaiming the band’s self-awareness, the passive music consumer may assume that Jaill is a young band attempting to thrust a premature sketch of a musical self-portrait into any open hands. Though That’s How We Burn represents the Milwaukee quartet’s second full-length effort, the group spent eight years recording in home studios and tirelessly touring their native Great Lakes region refining their particular brand of independent low-wave surf rock before music industry execs took notice. The long months on road playing constantly must have lent members a familiarity with their own and their fellows’ tendencies, musical and otherwise, and the new album clearly draws out the cohesive and interactive whole that the four determined Brew City bruisers have naturally formed.

Upholding the tenets of listener-friendly garage pop, none of the tracks on This is How We Burn break the four-minute mark, yet many incorporate arrangements demonstrating a good deal of maturity. As “Everybody’s Hip” clips along, the song’s recurring sections build in each repetition with the addition of backing vocal harmonies and a brief solo exchange between guitarists Ryan Adams and Vinnie Kircher.

The group’s collective instrumental prowess returns again in many songs injected with the melodic mores of musicians comfortable with their own voices. “Thank Us Later” calls for melancholic reflection with the lyrics “Why are you telling me lies tonight?” over hauntingly ringing feedback swells, and the final chorus gives way to stirring dissonant solo guitar riffing. While certain instruments take a more prominent role in the development of their sound, Jaill retains a sense of simple summer-fueled fun through cooperative interplay, uncluttered rhythms, and svelte tonal effects. Most notably, and perhaps anticipated by the track’s name, the album’s sole acoustic feature “Summer Mess” lifts listeners from the depths of a cold Midwestern January with electric guitar fills that rise like smoke from the end of a lit cigarette in the refreshing June breeze on the shore of Lake Michigan. Kircher exacts the same sentiment in his lyrics “Northern winter/it’s always night/Then the summer mess begins/always high.” The full band generates a warm coastal backdrop similar in affect to fellow Sub Poppers Avi Buffalo while a forward push reminiscent of Wolf Parade drives “Snake Shakes”.

After putting in years growing accustomed to their personal strengths and with one another, the members of Jaill seem to have found a great opportunity to share the heartland artist’s perspective of the current musical landscape with a broader audience. Their upcoming West Coast tour stint with The Hold Steady will undoubtedly introduce many open Californian ears to the group. True, some critics may cut Jaill down for not forging that landscape anew, but This is How We Burn more optimistically depicts the typical Midwestern personality: self-assured, unhurried, and overall friendly.