Kevin Bronson on December 5th, 2016

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Atomic Walrus are singer Joe Kellman, guitarist Max Cohen, bassist Marco Bohler and drummer Nivedan Nayak, who trace their roots to a UCLA co-op and who paid their dues playing a wide array of covers (from Franz Ferdinand to Drake) at house parties and local shows. Their early original material plowed the well-tilled earth of reggae and rap-rock, but in the past year the quartet has been working on the next step, completing an EP titled “Inappropriate Funeral Music.” The first single from that EP is “WYMMF” (Way You Make Me Feel), a bouncy surf-’n’-ska track perfect for celebrations on the sand on their South Bay home turf, if you don’t listen to the lyrics too closely. It speaks to the “underbelly of hopelessness in a seemingly picturesque beach town,” the band says; the single’s sunny demeanor (not to mention Bohler’s nifty bass solo), though, is postcard-perfect. The single will formally be out Dec. 13, with the EP due to follow early in 2017.

||| Stream: “WYMMF”

||| Live: Atomic Walrus is one of the performers at tonight’s Music Militia benefit show at the Satellite, alone with [Naomi], Voli, Will Woodland, Mothdrops and Atomic Walrus.