Mac DeMarco opens his new album “Salad Days” with the mellow title track featuring surf-rock strums and his steady yodel. He sounds like The Kinks’ Ray Davies on a sunny afternoon after a few beers. These are not the pumped-up rock jams that you need for the gym. Salad Days takes you back to the beanbag for a laid-back rock chillout that is anything but “soft.”

DeMarco channels the same kind of youthful crooning of early Bob Dylan or Tom Petty, but his musical accompaniment is as much his own voice. His band focuses the objective of contributing to DeMarco’s loose vocal style. Artful guitar licks and noticeable bass lines are as much a part of “Salad Days”’ heavy, layered sound as DeMarco’s voice is. The band isn’t just playing something for Demarco’s voice to sit on top of. Vocals and instruments are distinctly cuddly with each other.

“Blue Boy” is your ideal post-modern-youth-walking-down-the-alley-kicking-rocks anthem, while “Goodbye Weekend” features some of the album’s best guitar work with the perfect surfer tweaked and distorted take on a Hendrix-like blues riff for a solo.

“Let My Baby Stay” conforms to the rock-album staple of a love song but with all the Tom Waits-style lyrical ambiguity needed to offset expectations. Don’t misinterpret the name-dropping — little sprinkles of influence and style from all sorts of indie and rock genres are sure to present themselves to any of DeMarco’s listeners that are just joining on for “Salad Days.” His blending and distortion of his influences should, however, lead most to the recognition of DeMarco’s own specific sound.

The emotional instrumentation on “Passing Out Pieces” blows away any wisps of other artists’ essence seen in other tracks, reminding listeners that much like the Black Keys did with “Brothers,” rock can still be redefined. Keyboards and synth ease in heavily in “Chamber of Reflection,” as sharp keys and slow drums intersperse with DeMarco’s affirmation of maturation in being “alone again.”

“Salad Days” closes out with instrumental “Jonny’s Odyssey,” which opens up with folky riffs and chord progressions before dropping into a psychedelic synth pit. The jam is a perfect conclusion that lacks DeMarco’s voice but evokes his emotion present throughout the album until he thanks the listener after several seconds of silence.

★★★★★

ealinko@mavs.coloradomesa.edu