“Let me be clear. They could be a national act. They’ve the chops for it. They’ve got the magical whatever happy juice that goes into transitioning local heroes to a name that draws thousands anytime they show up to shred. They’re that good. Seriously. For real.” –AltDaily.com When “surf music” caught its first waves in the early 1960s, it was embraced as carefree escapism--fun, but maybe a little shallow, an adolescent pit stop. What J.Flax & the Heart Attacks put forward in their latest single, “Two-Faced Valentine, “ is a grittier, sharper surf sound, one that would resonate with beach bums and working stiffs alike. Frontman Jeremy Flax did in fact grow up by the ocean--not in SoCal, but the suburban swaths of Virginia Beach. You can glean some of that East Coast cynicism in the instruments’ banter: the organ and guitar playfully talk over each other, and Flax coats his vocals with a scratchy Jack White finish. Since 2012, various iterations of the Heart Attacks have accompanied Flax in Madrid, D.C. and the Chesapeake Bay area. But the current line-up--Mat Von Thies on drums, Guy Carmeli and bass, and Josh Seaburg on keyboard--has hit a stride, and the results are so much fun. The charged energy from the Heart Attacks’ live shows is captured remarkably well on this recording. Flax’s tremolo guitar riffs glide just as smoothly through earbuds as they would a nightclub PA, and the rhythm section commands. The mixing couldn’t have been easy--heard separately, there are contradictory sounds on these tracks, a tension quickly dissolved live on stage. The result is an audience who can’t stand still; the music is equally suitable for head-banging as it is for the twist. Halfway through a recent gig at repurposed church in D.C., Flax dramatically yanked his signature bow-tie undone, a powerful gesture in America’s most buttoned-up city. In interviews, Dick Dale, the man who first turned up the reverb on his guitar to unleash that surf sound, has drawn a distinction between the Beach Boys’ pop songs with lyrics about surfing and “the real surfing music,” which is primarily instrumental. “Two-Faced Valentine” is a lovelorn tirade, written well-after Daddy took the T-Bird away. ”I'm done, I'm just over the American life,” Flax snaps. But beneath the sneers is genuine hometown pride. On “Virginia Gentleman,” the B-side to “Two-Faced Valentine,” Flax sings: “If the whiskey’s not Virginian, then it goes in the sink… “ The waves in Virginia Beach might be smaller, but they’re there. This is how surf music should sound in 2016: a little less sunshine, and a lot more substance.