After frustrating fans of British music for almost a year, The Bees’ (or A Band of Bees in the United States) debut album, “Sunshine Hit Me,” finally hit these shores in late February.

The Bees, the duo of Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, are from the tiny, sparsely populated Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England.

They used to make their music in a shed, but that sank, so they moved to their basement. You see, Wight can be a cold, wet place.

As far as Butler and Fletcher are concerned though, it may as well be in the Caribbean – they focus more on the “isle” part of the homeland than the “white.”

They fought hard on the album against being pinned with a distinctive “sound,” but their closest contemporary musical cousin is the psychedelic hip-pop of the Beta Band.

A visual equivalent might well be the cover: an almost naïve-art image of a Mexican wrestler on a pink field, complete with faded areas where the edges of the vinyl record would be.

The album starts with the all-too-short “Punchbag,” previously released on a 2001 EP.

The first few seconds of flitty keyboard may recall “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” but the lilting trumpet blasts keep it grounded in soul territory.

Yes, it is destined for car commercials.

“Use me like a punchbag,” the duo requests, and it’s a safe bet they’re in for a sound beating.

It’s a dangerous thing, putting a song this good first.

“Angry Man” is gentle falsetto-funk tune with occasional bursts of reggae organ; the mood gets more sinister after the jam-band-esque sax solo, when they chant, “An angry man needs attention,” to the end.

Though it’s been seeping through the cracks, they finally go full-on reggae with “No Trophy,” which pays tribute more to the bouncy ska of Lee Perry and Trojan Records than the stadium-reggae of Marley.

It ends with an a capella arrangement of the multi-part Beach Boy harmonies that might have been overlooked amongst the buoyant thump.

The tinkling percussion of “Binnal Bay” sounds like some of the more polyrhythmic ethnic tracks on Damon Albarn’s (Blur, Gorillaz) Mali Music project, and the distantly recorded vocals match with a fireside sing-along feel.

“Sunshine” approaches spacey, Zero 7 and Air territory, but pumps it up with psychedelic jazz-rock interludes, instead of the ’70s soul and ’60s lounge of those acts.

Even without the lyrics (nothing but “sunshine”), the result sounds eerily like the Fifth Dimension.

The closest the Bees get to a conventional pop song is the album’s other highlight, “A Minha Menina,” a jittery Latin bustle with a White Striped guitar line running throughout.

If “Punchbag” will have the ad execs clamoring, “Menina” is a sure bet for the next Wes Anderson (“Rushmore,” “The Royal Tennenbaums”) film soundtrack.

Most people won’t know it’s a cover (originally by ’60s Brazilian group Os Mutantes), but will simply hope for more songs that move the feet just as much.

The second half only gets slower.

“This Town” is ‘the melancholy companion of “Medina,” a straightforward Latin jazz lament with popcorn organ buzzes.

The tidal piano of “Sweet Like a Champion” has only a little more pulse than a funeral dirge.

It and the next number, “Lying in the Snow” recall the slower songs of proggy Brit-pop group Elbow (better than their frequent description: Dave Matthews Band meets Coldplay-fans of either should take note).

Many may mistake the delicate piano line of “Zia” for the song in that “Now Leaving Childhood” Saturn commercial (hint: “We’ve Been Had” by The Walkmen).

Despite its beauty, it still sounds like something you might find in your dad’s record collection, if your dad is old.

Steadfastly refusing to revisit anything approaching 100 beats per minute, the album ends with “Sky Holds the Sun,” the white-bread-soul, Motown-on-sedatives number that sorrowfully wants to hold you, “like the sky holds the sun.”

But wait, there’s more!

Tacked onto the end, one minute in, is a bonus track, a common trick employed to appease the people who waited 11 months for an American album.

“You Got to Leave” was released only as a single in the UK, and it could be a candidate for “the radio song” in the U.S., but that would be highly misleading.

Here the Bees swagger more like Liars and their garage funky-punk contemporaries.

It’s an alter ego they assume well, but one gets the feeling they’re just having fun.

The bonus track aside, the pace of the second half is only a bad thing for those resolutely opposed to slow songs.

The album’s beauty increases exponentially from those last five songs alone.

Considering what is likely to be in their personal record collections, it’s probable that the Bees purposely divided “Sunshine Hit Me” into an A-side and a B-side. “A” is for active, and “B” is for…balmy?

Certainly not boring.

Either way, both sides are perfect for being hit by sunshine.

Bees duo, Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher, look disgruntled. Maybe it’s because their studio sank in the wet Isle of Wight. (Astralwerks)