Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: there’s this Swedish band, they play snappy garage rock, and they apparently got their last shipment of records from the U.S. in about 1970. Ah, but wait — we speak not of The Hives, but of their fellow countrymen Caesars, the band behind the recently released 39 Minutes of Bliss (In An Otherwise Meaningless World).

Beware, though — the album’s title is misleading. For one thing, the record is actually shorter than 39 minutes, and nearly 24 minutes of so-called bliss are repackaged from an earlier release. Of the remaining songs, two are covers.

So perhaps originality isn’t Caesars’ strong suit; at this point, the idea of Scandinavian retro rock is about as revolutionary as Michael Bolton. But the band proves there’s still something to be said for ripping off other people, with 37.9 minutes of rock ‘n’ roll that’s sunny, funny, good-natured and quite possibly as close to ’60s-style surf-punk as any group from above 55 degrees north latitude is ever going to come. When they say they’re gonna “let the sunshine in,” they aren’t kidding.

Accordingly, Caesars’ vision of bliss includes hooks aplenty, wah-wah pedals, little waves of distortion and drums that threaten to segue into “Wipeout.” Modern touches like guitar fuzz and electronic blips succeed, but attempts at psychedelia don’t; after all, it’s hard to be far-out when only two songs top four minutes.

And while an album that starts with the line “I wanna smoke crack / ‘Cause you’re never comin back” isn’t exactly the sign of a band begging to be taken seriously, that’s the point: Bliss is stuffed with tongue-in-cheek detachment and revels in studied stupidity.

“I don’t think you’re the smartest girl on the block, but I don’t mind,” singer C