Naming your album after Britain’s least favourite annual past-time is an interesting choice, as is naming your band after a song by the much neglected Sixties sunshine-pop group, The Free Design. What do this national hobby and the music of this cult band have in common? A certain wry optimism, which pretty much describes the jangle-pop creations of James Hoare and Max Claps, AKA The Proper Ornaments.

Indie-pop addicts will be familiar with Hoare’s name in his capacity as a guitarist and vocalist of Veronica Falls. Given that the band contains someone who already had a great track record in terms of making splendid guitar music and that the album is produced by Charlie March of everybody’s favourite synthpop-ers NZCA/LINES, the pedigree looks good, right? Correct – Waiting For The Summer doesn’t disappoint, being exactly the slice of cider-soaked summer bliss that it promised to be.

Still, it’s not the straight-forward, feel-good number you might expect, rather it’s really a strange series of tensions. Despite the formulaic lyrics, listening to ‘Shining Bright’ feels like watching the light fade from the sky on a sun-drenched day, knowing that the balmy evening holds even more promise – ah, those summer nights! ‘Nervous Breakdown’ is equally luminous, despite the trembling, jittery, borderline psychotic subject matter. ‘Riverboat’ shares that same undercurrent of slowly building melancholy paired with a certain vintage pop allure, and ‘You Still Tape’ has all the cool, quietly brooding nonchalance of a Godard film. “You still take, you still tape” – are they actually attempting parallel emotionally abusive relationships with music piracy? Maybe not. But at all of 1’30”, it’s tantalisingly short of a full song.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, given that the album’s title track begins by talking about feeling strained and strange, that Waiting For The Summer should pull you in unexpected directions. It’s the unforeseen moments and those tensions, between predictable pop tropes and the subtle, knowing way they are deployed, the angular guitar riffs and melancholy juxtaposed with Sixties singsong charm, that will keep you listening – and they’re also what makes the album feel relevant. The tight vocal harmonies of ‘The Free Design’ are saved from tipping over the edge into twee-as-fuck territory by Django Django-like drones and synth riffs so simple and irresistible that they will have you at ‘hello’, and ‘Recalling’ is the perfect example of how Hoare and Claps seamlessly blend their broad palette of influences into a great piece of pop.

The Proper Ornaments might sound very much like two British guys with guitars, making the kind of music that is always made by guys with guitars in Britain. And, well, yeah… you can’t deny it. That is true. But at least these are two guys who really know what they’re doing.

- Katherine Travers