With such a saturated market for ’70s-influenced rock bands, the Brooklyn quartet Standing Nudes risks being easily dismissed. But the band survives on catchy songs and a live act that New York City’s music press has called one of its most exciting. The band’s debut full-length album, Ghost Story, will be re-released January 15, after a successful limited run this past summer.

Three of the band’s four members are Oberlin graduates, and Dean Bein, OC ’05, owns the band’s record label, True Panther Sounds. The band counts Led Zeppelin, the Zombies and Thin Lizzy as influences, which the group shows when it unabashedly rocks out with wah-wah guitar solos and sings about roads (“Interstate Five”), cities (“Atlanta”) and girls (“Rita”). The distinctive raspy, breathy voice of Molly Shea is supported by Jason Klauber on lead guitar, Matt Asti on bass and Will Berman on drums.

The twelve songs on Ghost Story range from muscular garage rock to pretty, melodic balladry to jangly power pop. Ghost Story is definitely the work of a band that has studied its rock’n’roll history, but it never comes off as calculated or engineered. If the band’s press release serves as any indication, the Standing Nudes don’t take themselves very seriously (apparently, they used to eat Chinese food before every practice, but lately it’s been burritos). The record sounds like a band assuredly and effortlessly churning out minor indie rock classics, and having fun at it.

Like Richard Linklater’s classic 1993 film Dazed and Confused, Ghost Story nostalgically evokes ’70s Americana in all its slacker glory, but streamlines that most beloved decade to seem sexier and more fashionable than it probably was. Nevertheless, the promise of an amazing live band articulating these songs in performance makes Ghost Story much more attractive than it would be on its own. Hopefully, when Standing Nudes go on tour to support Ghost Story, the band will prove to Oberlin why it is one of New York City’s most exciting live acts.