Whoever said the best things come in threes obviously hadn’t heard Big Deal. Alice Costelloe and Kacey Underwood have undoubtedly created something pretty special with their debut album, Lights Out. Taken on first impressions, a London girl/American boy duo harmonising cutely over stripped back guitars would leave me cold with presumptions of generic, hackneyed introspection, but what Big Deal offer is in fact completely wonderful.

Lights Out doesn’t concern itself with complexity and is underscored by a startling rawness and simplicity which is exactly what makes the 12 tracks so sublime and effective. Alice is the lead vocalist, her delicate voice the epitome of a yearning, cautious romantic. “You just want me for the songs I write about you / about how I like you”, she sighs on ‘Chair’, setting the tone for the album – a bittersweet tome of utter longing, insecurity, uncertainty and love.

For a band in its infancy it seems apt that it’s all a very touchingly adolescent affair with lyrics like “Take me to your bed / Don’t take me home / I want to be old” along with Alice lamenting her loss of concentration at the hands of a new romance on ‘Homework’. At first it reminded me of being an awkward, affection starved, doe-eyed teenager, constantly hankering for all the wrong boys and all the ones hopelessly out of reach. (Case in point-Julian Casablancas.) But then I realised it could be related to at any age because it narrates the tentative first steps in a relationship, where vulnerability and carefully harboured feelings turn us all into juvenile, awkward, affection starved, doe-eyed teenagers, if a little more jaded than we were before.

There’s little point talking about highlights of this album when it’d be picking apart a flawless body of work that flows beautifully from one song to the next. Its spirit is lo-fi at the same time as it is carefully constructed and polished, its grungy sensibilities recalling Giant Drag at their more tender moments. Alice sounds like a girl who’s used to longing for the unattainable, she speaks of the heartbreak that comes with chasing love that isn’t reciprocated and the perils of wearing her heart on her sleeve in a fearlessly confessional way. The sheer honesty of this album is refreshing, there’s no defensive missive, just an outpouring of affection and even the most hardened cynic would have trouble staying unmoved.

When it comes to Alice and Kacey, the “are they / aren’t they” question is never far from the lips of journalists but it’s churlish and pointless to focus on that when their chemistry fizzles even on record. It doesn’t matter who is the recipient of Alice’s love letters, just the fact that we are afforded the chance to listen to them is intimate enough. What makes this album even more magical is that it shouldn’t be remarkable, but it is. On paper it is nothing out of the ordinary but that’s why it’s so surprising and such a joy to listen to.

Behind all the introversion, coy admittances and modesty, their chosen moniker is fitting, and it’s only a matter of time before people catch on. They are kind of a big deal.