THIS band may hail from New Jersey, but they have little of the terseness and grit customarily associated with that blue-collar region on the eastern seaboard of America.

Such are the silksmooth harmonies that anyone would swear they originated on the opposite coast where Beach Boys, Byrds and Springfieldbased Buffaloes roamed. The songs are wide-open landscapes – sand, sea, sun and surf and subsequently, soporific.

If there is one word I detest in the English language it is ‘nice’.

Atlas is the epitomé of niceness and it’s harmlessness is enough to make this listener shudder.

Lead vocalist Alex Bleeker has the phrasing of Ian Brown of the Stone Roses. But there the similarity ends. Where Manc magician Brown’s vocal dexterity is ingrained with a heartfelt harshness, Real Estate’s frontman is pure honeyed blandness.

There’s also a Byrds’ jingle-jangle to the instrumentation, but all of a sameness that borders on the tedious as if you are sitting on a duck-down cushion upon a cloud of candyfloss