When predicting the success of a band, I find it helps to picture them in a venue and see if they fit. The majority conform to either small pubs, clubs and bars OR larger festivals and big events. Rarely do they merge into both, and when they do, it generally means good things.

The Tea Street Band, however, seem to do this rather well.

The first time I listened to their eponymous album throughout, I pictured them in the underground cellar-like Borderline venue in Soho, which I saw JAWS at earlier this year. Within my little mental fabrication, they fit in quite effectively. There’s laughter and passive-aggressive dancing and everyone’s having a good time.

On the second time I listened to the album, however, I pictured the band playing Reading festival or somewhere similar, packing out one of the smaller tents like Bastille or The 1975 did last year. And again, it worked.

And thus I deducted that the formula that makes this band work is that it is, ultimately, just honest, happy music. Described by frontman Timo Tierney to The Guardian as being “about good times even if the good times aren’t real.”, The Liverpudlian Tea Street Band purges an optimistic, summery essence whether it’s summer or not, and that is something rarely captured in music.

But more than that, it is good music. ‘Look On Your Face’ almost had an essence of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Stone Roses, or at parts Smiths-y elements (but less depressive and with a Kaossilator), both of which are no bad thing. Also cited as “like the pop song with a twist” to Gigslutz, there is that pop-like factor, too, which for once isn’t necessarily a criticism in conjunction with the riffs and layered instrumentals. In combination, this provides a kind-of joyful hazy effect, perpetuating that ‘summer’ feeling, which has been mastered in this album.

There is a sense of almost moral virtue about the band – like something that hasn’t been corrupted by pursuits of simply making money to get rich. Talks of not really listening to the newer music, and saying things like “Imagine paying bills off playing guitar”, the band fills me with the hope that perhaps not all modern rock-indie-alternative-pop bands are recycled and cliché. Something about the band feels real and genuine, which many don’t nowadays.

Lyrically, seemingly all of the songs on the new album are emotionally-charged, and whilst the topic of romance can so easily slip into depressive soliloquies with music, the positivity of the band and the euphoria that engulfs it has created a sound that I’m happy to listen to, and not just because I’m reviewing it. The album makes you want to move, and as a result of which has gradually been moving its way up my Most Played song listing over the course of the last few hours.

‘Lost For Words’, is currently available on iTunes and the self-titled album is due for release through the bands Pledge campaign this May.