In light of the 20-year trend rule, the Lathums’ mid-00s indie revivalism seems a bit premature. But the Wigan foursome aren’t instigating any sort of genre comeback – they’re simply part of a relay that’s been going since the sound’s original heyday, the baton passed over the years from Kasabian to Catfish and the Bottlemen to Circa Waves to Blossoms to Sea Girls. Judging by the considerable commercial success of these acts, the appetite for chugging, slightly jangly indie has always remained massive, regardless of the zeitgeist.

That apparently deep-seated need partly accounts for the Lathums’ breakneck ascent: within a year of forming, their shows were selling out in minutes. The band tap into an evergreen nostalgia for the Smiths, by way of the Kooks and Arctic Monkeys, and they do it well: their hooky, mid-tempo guitar rock perfectly balances euphoria and melancholy, while frontman Alex Moore’s clearly accented vocals are characterful and reassuringly familiar; if the band have a USP, it is his sporadic spurts of tongue-twistingly fast singing (see: I See Your Ghost, Fight On).

The Lathums aren’t as witty or cultured as their indie forebears: their lyrics are simple and often vague (is the jaunty title track about climate disaster or merely the joys of a cup of tea?), but that also gives them a sweetly unpretentious quality (Artificial Screens, a protest against smartphone obsession, is a case in point). Its retro sensibility and guileless tone means How Beautiful Life Can Be is the guitar music equivalent of comfort food: undemanding, slightly stupefying, but immensely cheering all the same.