The Sewer Doves fly out of the noize.

It's 18 degrees outside, and The Endless Summer is silently splashing across a canvas along the back wall at Pianos on Ludlow St. Bruce Brown's 1966 documentary on globetrotting surfers isn't just appropriate in an inappropriate way?considering that half the audience hasn't yet thawed out?but it's also capturing the fantastic and highly fortunate adventures of a small tribe of singleminded beach boys.

The Sewer Doves are singleminded in their own way. The Brooklyn-based four-piece?part of the Noisefiends music collective, which also boasts Grand Mal and Cabbage as members?is playing to a mixed crowd of knowing supporters and curious first-timers. With their first song, they're somehow synchronized to the beat of enormous and exotic breakers pounding the West African coast. The crowd rides the music, the band rides the crowd's energy?and everyone is transported into the movie, feeling as if each song could take them away from the cold, dusty snow that whips around outside.

Sewer Doves' bassist Jamie Laboz had the idea of performing a score to the film. He wanted to provide a sense of hospitality to winter-weary onlookers, that same comfortable, warm feeling one gets from a mug of mulled cider on a winter evening. It's clear that this is one of those performances that inspires scenester types to talk about seeing a band before they played with X at Y, or before their Nth album became popular. Which may be sooner than some realize: a track from the band's current release, Subterranean Boogie, will be featured on MTV's dating show, Dismissed.

Some of the tracks on their self-released, seven-track CD are reminiscent of Abbey Road, while others throw back to the Kinks or Badfinger or the Vandals. But theirs, like Grand Mal's and Cabbage's, is not an old sound. The classic hooks support modern vocals that themselves waver between new garage and Brit rock. Beneath it all are melodies that suggest hope for rock 'n' roll.

When playing live, the band presents more of a conversation between the musicians than an orchestrated event. Drummer Alan Camlet explained afterward: "When we play as a group, we're having a conversation between us. The more honest that conversation is, the better you understand it and are moved by that conversation."

That said, sometimes the conversation seems more like an argument, particularly at the end of "Empty Pockets" and "Leave It Alone." Both songs are masterful, 60s-era pop bits that gel perfectly through climax, but they quickly decomposed at the Pianos show, leaving the audience grasping for the initial hook. That's one fatal mistake that can easily kill the effectiveness of good pop music, but tonight, it was a forgivable sin.

In the coming months, the band will be playing a lot to support the new album. Don't expect The Endless Summer at every performance, but do count on the Sewer Doves picking up where acts like Matthew Sweet and the Strokes have fumbled.

Sewer Doves will play on Fri., April 11 at CB's 313 Gallery. 313 Bowery (Bleecker St.), 212-677-0455. 8:15, $7.