Yes, Free Energy’s debut Stuck On Nothing is on DFA and yes, it was produced by James Murphy. No, it has nothing do with 12-minute cosmic disco jams, Detroit house revival or sweaty dance floor anthems featuring Antony. Think of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” and you’ve got exactly what Free Energy sounds like. At once a confounding sonic choice for DFA, philosophically, Free Energy couldn’t fit in more perfectly. For the last however many years, no other label has been more (hyper)active in trying to get you to hang up your hang-ups and cut the fuck loose. Burned into slabs of wax around the globe, the slinky, spaced-out DFA sound has been built upon a manifesto of killing the cynical spirit. And if there’s anything James Murphy has perfected, it’s the art of disarming, of getting you to lighten up for once in your goddamned self-serious life. Which is where Free Energy comfortably steps in.

During kick-off track “Free Energy” (yes, that’s the title), dual guitars spiral around what may be the most pronounced cowbell performance since you-know-who, all while lead singer Paul Spranger pronounces: “This is all we got tonight/We are young and still alive/Now the time is on our side.” Within three sugary minutes, things become totally clear; this is a band (and a record) hell-bent on living out those Saturday nights of summer forever — the ones where kids drive around aimlessly hoping to score a 30-rack from their buddy’s older brother, maybe end up at a party out in a field, and hopefully, for the love of God, hook up. And if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter because youth is forever, invincibility is easy and there’s always next Saturday night.

To be perfectly honest here, Free Energy’s debut isn’t an album that lends itself all that well to criticism — which makes my job here pretty difficult. Any sort of heady music journalism feels forced and foreign to Free Energy’s motives — like a teacher on the last day of school yelling at the students to do their homework while that freedom bell’s finally ringing. Could I say the record hinges on an overwhelmingly positive vibe? Sure. That their classic rock revivalism seems more like an earnest love letter than an empty attempt at being defined in an over-saturated scene? Definitely. I predict stuffy critical responses to Stuck On Nothing, gasps of “shtick” that with all hope will be straight up ignored (that’s your job, kids).

The DFA you’ve come to know operates in a hedonistic universe, stretching its limbs along throbbing pulses under neon lights. And believe it or not, Free Energy somehow taps into that very same pulse (for starters, look at their name) — but instead it’s done with the love of the triumphant three-chord crunch, the nostalgic sax outro and the wordless chorus. And in place of those neon lights, the beaming headlights of the pick-up truck you need to be sitting on the hood of, stockpile of booze in the cab and a group of friends armed with the ability to, yes, cut the fuck loose.

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