The GoldRoom are a worldly bunch who’ve just debuted their prickly-but-sweet LP The Surrounding Hours earlier this fall. Recorded, mixed and mastered in the UK, Italy, Nashville and Rockvale, Tenn., the songs are as distinct from one another as the location at which they were put together. There isn’t enough room to list every artist whose influence appears, even momentarily, on The Surrounding Hours. Suffice it to say that you’ll pick up on dozens of bands in alternative rock from the mid ’80s up to now.

The band switches modes multiple times throughout ten tracks, blurring lines with messy reverb as well as drawing distinct ones with hard and heavy drums and guitar. Hard riffs paired with conversational speech stick in your head like a Beastie Boys song on opener “All Thumbs,” then “New Drifter” establishes their taste for melody.

Things get softer; they cast their eyes down with the morose, all-instrumental “Snow Thief” led by bleary guitars opened up with a snare’s hollow pop. “Es Verdad” comes out of left field as Rio Cuarto, Argentina’s Flor Moreiira lends gorgeous vocals to the slinky, slightly muted track. Then hushed murmurs and acoustic loveliness entwine in a windy melody on “My Darling.”

But The GoldRoom does best when they pull a sweet, infectious melody out of thick and heavy instrumentation, especially when they recall a little ’90s nostalgia in the process (as they do with a poisonous little riff on “I Can Guess”). “Cue the Spies” is another standout in which a mean distortion rips through a percussive tsk, while some wiry guitars work over it.

At times, the recording sounds slightly cramped, as if the drums are contained, which is a shame. That aside, The GoldRoom is golden with this LP. There’s enough energy to bowl over a live audience, and enough whimsy and uniqueness to keep them interested. What’s better than hard rock with a dearness to it?