As befits one who took his band’s name from a section in Don DeLillo’s breakthrough novel White Noise, The Airborne Toxic Event leader Mikel Jollett specialises in wordy tracts of poetic despair. Whereas most lyricists write mere lines, he offers paragraphs and this sufferer of the skin diseases alopecia and vitiligo gazes into the middle distance as he sings them.

So far, so intellectual but as they showed last night, this Los Angeles quintet are unashamedly a pop group, brimming with instantly hummable, unashamed pop songs. Blessed with the warmth of Arcade Fire, The Hold Steady’s tightly drilled musicality and the heroic wide-screen vision of Jim Steinman, it’s little wonder that these instrument swappers are this week’s Next Big Thing.

Even a 10pm start failed to dampen enthusiasm but by the end, sultry violinist/keyboardist Anna Bulbrook had surfed a crowd who returned the compliment during the irresistibly catchy closer Missy by invading the stage. In between, Gasoline was all Icicle Works-ish cascading chords and flag-waving choruses, Sometime Around Midnight was a grandstanding, kitchen sink ballad and the harrowing Innocence re-cast them as the Joy Division you can whistle to.

Jollett dropped more than one hint about not having a proper record label to release their eponymous debut album and being financially embarrassed. It’s hard to imagine either state of affairs lasting for much longer. Obviously brilliant.