Wisest is he who knows what he does not know and whatnot. I must admit that the doubtless burgeoning music scene in Manchester suburb Chorlton-cum-Hardy is something of a personal blind spot, an unexplored urban jungle of possibility and potential musical delight. Oh no, wait, it’s where The Bee Gees lived. Before disco. Nevertheless, current natives Driver Drive Faster seem to be looking across the pond for inspiration on an Americana-tinged debut album – and it’s a jolly good thing, too.

Open House is cocksure, lush and just occasionally frustrating, beginning with vim and vigour, a discernible keenness of purpose that seems to dwindle a little as the record wears on. ‘The Conversation’ opens with peppy freneticism and ebbs and flows, soft and gushing to the stuttery last drumbeats. Second song ‘It’s All Over It’s Everywhere’, double-underlined by a driving rhythm that threatens to overrun, well exhibits the James Mercer-esque falsetto vocals of singer Dylan Giles – and is, together with the gorgeous ‘Missing Out’, a virtuously simple and successful stab at Shins-alike potent-but-wistful jangly indie alt-rock. Memorable and hummable; the comparison is obvious but earned. Later, ‘Can’t Afford to Rely on Fate’ is also excellent, sharing the eerie air of hazy despondency so well contrived on the recent Felice Brothers’ release.

However, the album’s early impetus threatens to evaporate on ‘Oxygen’, testing the patience with sultrily momentum-sapping twiddle twaddle. This could have been something of a crossing place, and on first play it is tempting to suggest that a lot of what follows, sound tending towards the swollen, is intermittently engaging and insufficiently raw. Uncharitably characterised, the pattern established is one of pleasant but pedestrian tracks that want for brevity. However, serving up attractive indie rock staples – the pacy ones, the pretty ones, the spectral ones, the stirry ones – on a record that exudes a groggy, gauzy warmth, the variety overcomes any vapidity, and frustration abates.

Suspicion that the highlights have been rather front-loaded is also dampened by the closing two tracks. ‘One Last Look’ is a percussive, expansive excursion for guitar and drums, while the concluding title track totters around like a lurching drunk with just the woozy whoosh of cars occasioning the carriageway for company.

Incidentally, Driver Drive Faster possess the pleasing but distracting trait of all looking kind of a bit like someone else, if you squint. See it now? Not so much that the resemblance would be spotted by a mutual acquaintance, but just so much that you could spend an entire evening trying to make the face fit. David Tennant on keys, for a start. And if three of the foursome remind you of the now defunct Polytechnic, that’s because they were. It’s no surprise this is a particularly assured and accomplished debut, then.

Given their current guise, unfortunately, I am obliged by the twin mistresses of fallibility and inevitability to finish with some sort of motoring analogy. Driver Drive Faster are far enough from the middle of the road on Open House for the album to be very definitely worth your while, even if it takes a couple of fidgety listens before you really tune into its finest moments. That the band can impress, both with collective foot to the floor and when content to slow to a crawl, is a most promising sign.