How chill is too chill? For Real Estate, the band that's spent the last five years redefining the meaning of "laid-back," the breaking point is precisely 21 degrees Fahrenheit. "How is it not heated up here?!" guitarist Matt Mondanile wonders as we reach the fourth floor of The Golf Club at Chelsea Piers, an outdoor driving range buried within a gigantic warehouse on the edge of Manhattan's West Side. On this frosty January afternoon, the band is set up to swing more than 200 dimpled balls into the nether regions of The Golf Club's expanse—a goal that seems increasingly unlikely as they shiver underneath a lonely heating lamp in the tee-off area. 

Still, they soldier on. Frontman Martin Courtney steps up and sails one into the distance—a commendable effort. "This is my first time holding a golf club," he says sheepishly. Slightly more experienced bassist Alex Bleeker cuts a few solid shots, at one point nailing the ball collector. But it's Mondanile who proves to be the strongest hitter, a trait he picked up from swinging as a kid at New Jersey's Montclair Country Club. After about 50 balls, they head inside to thaw.

Befitting their mellow rep, everyone's dressed in some comfy combination of flannel, Mister Rogers sweaters, casual footwear, spectacles, and baseball caps, and talk turns to their imminent third album, Atlas. Bleeker is excited about the prospect of hiring a Steely Dan cover band called Pretzel Logic ("They do a killer 'Peg'") to play an upcoming release party, and when the bassist eventually fetches his car, it's a gigantic red van that seems perfectly suited for, say, following Phish on tour. They've nicknamed the van "Reality", which doubles as the title of a 2010 Real Estate EP that contains what might be the ultimate Real Estate lyric, one that perfectly encapsulates the real-world-skirting, suburban-summer mindset this band is known for: "If it takes all summer long, just to write one simple song/ There's too much to focus on, clearly that is something wrong."

The simplicity of Real Estate's music has simultaneously proved to be a boon and a minor thorn in the band's side since they wafted into indie-rock's consciousness five years ago, recalling fellow New Jerseyans the Feelies' jangly, elliptical mantras as well as Yo La Tengo's patient elegance. (In 2012, Courtney and his wife chose Yo La Tengo's "Our Way to Fall" as their wedding song.) "There’s something that’s kind of nice about our music," Mondanile says during a phone conversation from his apartment in L.A.'s Highland Park. (The rest of the band still live in Brooklyn.) "It's lackadaisical and less intensely emotional than, say, Radiohead. Our music possesses an ambient quality similar to electronic music—it's pleasing to have on in the background."

Fittingly, there are several Real Estate songs that sound as if they were made specifically for unobtrusive, vibe-setting TV syncs; over lunch at Greenpoint comfort-food haven Jimmy's, Bleeker jokes about how Atlas' featherweight first single "Talking Backwards" would work as opening-credits music on a CW teen drama. In actuality, the band is judicious when it comes to extra-musical opportunities, recently turning down Mountain Dew's Green Label Sound but going ahead with a private performance for the employees of winter-wear company Patagonia—"I got some money and a winter coat out of it," says Courtney.

But what's elevated the band's work thus far beyond mere ambience, then, is its ability to use an unpretentious sound to casually stir memories and emotions. Similar to spiritual forebears the Shins and Death Cab for Cutie, Real Estate write the type of warm, yearning tunes that soundtrack the small complications that dot young people's lives while reminding older listeners of when they were still gaining a sense of large-scale perspective. On Atlas, the band stands right at the midsection of those two points.

A lovingly intricate album reminiscent of noted influence Television's own six-string fantasias, Atlas solidifies Real Estate as a rock-solid guitar-based indie band at a time when the phrase "guitar-based indie band" can seem antiquated. The group's leap in sound quality is partially owed to producer Tom Schick (Ryan Adams, Low), who worked with them in Wilco's Loft studio in Chicago. "That place is filled with amazing gear—Jeff Tweedy has nearly 100 guitars," Bleeker marvels. "The guys at the studio were like, 'We tell his wife he only has 12.'"

Apart from its three core members, a different lineup of accompanying musicians has arrived with every Real Estate record; for Atlas, newcomers include drummer Jackson Pollis and former Girls keyboardist Matt Kallman. Joining a band with such a tight-knit history as Real Estate's can prove challenging, but Kallman says that Courtney, Mondanile, and Bleeker are exceptions to the rule. "They're like brothers, but they've never made me feel like an outsider," he says. "I don't think their relationship would ever dissolve to the point where they couldn't work well together. They're just the nicest, coolest, most mellow dudes."

Improvements in fidelity and personnel aside, it's still impossible to mistake these songs as coming from anyone except this band, adding fuel to detractors' arguments that Real Estate's consistency doesn't make for particularly interesting music. The band is aware of these complaints, and although it seems like it would take a serious infraction to truly anger these unassumingly affable guys, the arrows sting nonetheless.

Bleeker cites Domino Records labelmates Animal Collective as a reason why Real Estate sometimes face unreasonable expectations. "They changed the American indie landscape by radically changing their sound on every record, which is the trend in underground music now," he says. "When people are like, 'You guys aren't really changing,' I'm like, 'We're an indie rock band. What do you think is going to happen?'"

"Kids these days, they're all goth—or into house music," 28-year-old Courtney says with the befuddlement of someone twice his age. "I don’t even know what you'd call the kind of music that kids are into. When I was younger, guitar music was still the thing and had been forever, so I'm happy when people say that we're the band that still plays guitar music. We play the music that we liked when we were younger, and it’s great."

Courtney, Bleeker, and Mondanile all grew up together in the small, quiet Northern Jersey suburb of Ridgewood, a place that up until recent years was more known for its absurdly large houses and top-rated public schools than its music scene. (I should know: I too grew up in Ridgewood and went to high school with some members of Real Estate.) Courtney and Bleeker, in particular, carry history that dates back to a tee-ball-league meeting in the third grade. "He called me a 'ho' for some reason," Courtney chuckles while recounting the first time he met his future bassist. "I was like, 'You just called me a garden tool.'" Five years later, the two became friends near the end of middle school, and the following summer Courtney met Mondanile through a mutual acquaintance. "Martin had just came back from Warped Tour and he'd dyed his hair blue," Mondanile recalls.

Seldom a moment passed in their high school lives when one of them wasn't in a band. There was the Courtney-fronted ska group Fletcher and the Sticky Wickets; Paperface, a noisy project Mondanile was involved in that took its name from an obscure Weezer B-side; a bevy of covers bands with names like Hey There Sexy and Emerson X-Ray Solutions; and most notoriously, the Annexation of Puerto Rico, fronted by a fellow classmate whose spoken-word performances were often drowned out by his bandmates.

After a couple of years, Mondanile was taken out of Ridgewood High School by his parents and put into a Massachusetts boarding school called Buxton, where he honed his guitar skills. They all eventually went on to attend what Bleeker refers to as "grade-less hippie colleges"—Mondanile to the Northeast free-spirit enclave Hampshire College, Bleeker following suit to the nearby Bennington, and Courtney to the Pacific Northwest's Evergreen. 

While at Hampshire, Mondanile became interested in Amherst's thriving noise scene, while Courtney and Bleeker continued writing songs in college, too, trading off their latest compositions between the three of them. After graduating, Courtney and Mondanile found themselves back in Ridgewood, and they laid down a few songs to tape for what would become Real Estate's first release, the "Suburban Beverage" 7". The single was put out in 2009 by Underwater Peoples, a label funded with money that one of the band's friends raised selling weed in college, according to Mondanile. (Underwater Peoples, for their part, refute the weed part.)

Inspired by the modest successes of local Jersey acts Titus Andronicus and Vivian Girls, Real Estate decided to pursue music as a full-time concern. "These other bands literally sprung from the same exact background as us," says Bleeker. "They made becoming a working band a tangible goal." For now, the boom of bands from Ridgewood is less representative of a thriving scene and more of a self-contained phenomenon, the by-product of friends that grew up with common interests, disposable income, and easy access to nearby New York City that provided opportunities for cultural enrichment. "We were extremely sheltered, but not sheltered from culture," Bleeker says. "That kind of safety encourages growth and exploration." Katy Goodman, formerly of Vivian Girls, puts it more succinctly: "Kids have been making music in the suburbs for decades. It's our favorite thing to do."

So much of what Real Estate do is reliant on their own personal histories, both as friends and as suburban-kids-gone-grown-ups—and as a former Ridgewood resident, it's especially hard for me to listen to their music without conjuring idyllic images of freshly-cut lawns, the sticky haze of summer, or the nocturnal symphony of crickets. But on Atlas, Mondanile claims that Courtney steered clear of dwelling too hard on the past: "He got sick of being nostalgic and so did the rest of us—you can only take that feeling so far."

There are moments of nostalgic reflection on Atlas, such as the chiming "Past Lives" ("I cannot come back to this neighborhood/ Without feeling my old age"), but, largely, the lyrics reflect Courtney's new life as a married man. "Had to Hear" and "Talking Backwards" concern themselves with the importance of communication and the yearning feelings that come with being miles away from a loved one; the easygoing "Crime", meanwhile, represents the sweetest love song Real Estate have put to tape yet, a moony-eyed devotional where Courtney asks, "If I may be so bold/ Will you go straight with me?"

"For Atlas, I was trying to write more about the my current life in Brooklyn, which was a little uncomfortable for me," says Courtney, "but it was good because it made me realize that I don't really like Brooklyn and that I keep writing about the suburbs because I want to go back there." The singer has ample reason to yearn for a quieter life: His first child is due this spring. 

"Amongst my friends, I'm pretty young to be having a kid," he says. "I've got anxiety issues, and ever since starting this band I've always thought: 'I hope this lasts.' Now I've got the lingering fear of being a career musician and making the decision to fucking bring another life in the world, and hoping I can step up to the plate."

With his personal concerns out in the open, Courtney's tone changes from contemplative to excited. For a few minutes, his perspective shifts away from the golden-hued past and the placid present to the promising uncertainties of the future. "This could be the best year of my life," he says. His face momentarily carries an overwhelmed expression, as if he's trying to wrap his head around the incoming realities rushing toward him. He looks happy.