Buffalo indie trio The Tins are ready to share their first full-length album, Life’s A Gas, with the world and they want you to celebrate with them. Catch Mike Santillo (keyboards/vocals), Adam Putser (guitar/vocals), Dave Muntner (drums) and their winter beards at 9 p.m. tonight at Nietzsche’s (248 Allen Street) with guests Dotson Moon and Handsome Jack.

After spending almost a year and a half working with Modest Mouse producer Joe Blaney and promoting the album, the band is looking forward to getting their new music out there and moving on to the next step.

“There’s still more to do,” said Santillo. “We’ve been working really hard to promote the album, getting everything in line to find a PR person, and then working with him. It’s a lot of stuff that takes us away from doing what we love, which is recording and writing music. We’ve just been sending business emails nonstop and it’s really tiring. It feels good to be able to move on and start writing new material.”

The time devoted to promoting Life’s A Gas has generated quite a bit of buzz for The Tins. From a feature in Performer Magazine to a premiere of the album on the Paste Magazine site, the band’s hard work is starting to pay off. The Tins, however, are trying not to get too caught up in it.

“We don’t really know how to gauge the whole press situation,” said Muntner. “Some press is always important because it’s exposing you to other people that haven’t heard your music before. We did press for our EP two years ago and it allowed more people to listen to our music, but at the end of the day, we still have a lot of work to do to continue to exist as a band.”

Needless to say, Life’s A Gas has brought The Tins a lot of attention, and for good reason. The carefully-selected 11 tracks on the album are fresh, catchy and worth a listen. The blend of alternative rock, indie pop, and skillful songwriting reflects the group’s collaborative approach to their music. Band favorites “Midnight Crowd,” “Please Be Kind,” and “Shozo Hirono” stand out, and it’s easy to see why the album has earned them another invite to the CMJ Music Marathon. 

The Tins might not be used to all the attention just yet, but dealing with criticism—good and bad—is nothing new. Living with music elitists early on in their formation helped the group develop their sound.

“We used to try to write really catchy pop songs that were terrible,” said Putser. “We felt bad for them. They hated it and had to hear it all the time.”

“We practiced our original music two hours every day,” continued Muntner. “One of our roommates came to us at one point and said ‘I like the direction you guys are going for, but if you’re trying to write this catchy music, it has to be catchy.’ That really hit home with me. Not that we actually got better overnight, but it was a learning process.”

“We had constant music critics,” said Santillo. “Learning to accept criticism is one thing that we all have done together. I think we’re completely honest with each other about our songs because they’re fully collaborative and that’s made us better songwriters.”

The Tins have will perform across the East coast for the next three months (upcoming shows) and hope to make it back to Austin for SXSW in March. The band also plans to start writing their next album this winter and would like to release new albums regularly, before they run out of creative ideas.

“In my opinion, when a band is still young, they write their best material,” said Muntner. “So you have to get it out while you can. Think of the Rolling Stones. They aren’t better today than they were 30 years ago. Or are they?”

“Like Weezer,” said Putser. “When’s the last time they were good? I think the Green album, but everyone will disagree with me.”

“The Tins,” said Santillo. “The Tins were really good in 2010.” 

The Tins’ album release party kicks off at 9 pm tonight at Nietzsche’s. $5/Door, $10/Door + CD.