Do not bet against Little Man Tate being the first breakthrough act of 2007.

Their Sheffield address, their perky marriage of The Who, The Jam and Britpop and their run of cheeky singles all come to head with the cannily timed release of their debut album, About What You Know, on January 29.

On Wednesday, in their first gig of the year, they play Fibbers in York, one of their favourite spots ever since their first tentative slot in September 2005.

Little Man Tate are in demand, promoting both their new album and fourth single, Sexy In Latin, a playground chant set to catch on from Monday.

York Twenty4Seven caught up with a coughing Jon Windle, the band's vocalist and songwriter, last Tuesday. "Me and Maz the guitarist are off to Amsterdam tomorrow to do some publicity and things, and then Milan the day after tomorrow, which we've never done before, " he says.

This must be an exciting time for the band, that moment just before the first album hits the fans, right at the start of a new rock year.

"Yeah, we're delighted it's out in January. Originally it was going to come out in November, and the reason we put it back was mainly because we wanted to add new songs and we decided not to have some of the old singles on there.

Rather than ripping off people with an album with four singles they already knew, we took off the first two singles The Agent and What? What You Got? and put on Little Big Man, This Must Be Love and European Lover, " says Jon.

"We thought with The Agent, it was something that we did really early on and it was best to leave it that way, and we've also kept a couple of live favourites off there, like Hello Miss Lovely, which we may release as a B side, which would be cool if we could do that."

Little Man Tate have come so far in little more than 18 months.

"For us it's unbelievable, and right from the word go, we can't believe how it's all fallen into place, " Jon says. "A lot of it's to do with luck, though I believe in our band and what we're doing 100 per cent, but you have to be in the right place at the right time.

Someone at the right management has to like you, and the right radio stations have to like you."

Has the Sheffield factor helped in the wake of the Arctic Monkeys?

"It's definitely helped to get that first foot up, but then you're constantly battling the whole Arctic Monkeys thing. It's pretty hard to be in a band from Sheffield with the biggest band in the UK coming from there, but then who's going to be as good as they are?" Jon says. "So it's helped but it's also been a hindrance, though we don't worry about that and just hope people pick up on us."

He believes the way that Little Man Tate write their songs makes them stand out.

"I think it's good that we just approach it differently from some people in that we're never going to stand on rooftops saying, 'We're the greatest'. Leave that to other cities! It's the Yorkshire way: we don't bang on about it, we just go and do it, " Jon says.

"I think the rest of the world thinks we're ten years behind, and when we were in America, people almost felt sorry for us. You say you're from Sheffield, and they say 'Ah'; I think people still think 'pits'."

Such attitudes are water off the duck's back to Jon. "We write about what everybody thinks about, but we say it rather than just thinking about it. We write about normal things, " says Jon.

In turn, this explains the album title.

"The reason we fell upon calling it About What You Know is that we were reading the NME and there was this interview with Jarvis Cocker their fellow Sheffield songwriter, where he said he'd heard our song Man I Hate Your Band and thought it was appalling. He said 'Write about what you know? but not if it's boring'."

Ooh, harsh, Jarvis.

"Well, worse things happen, " says Jon, taking it in his stride. "My mates said to me, 'Think about it; when you were listening to Pulp records at 14,15, did you ever think Jarvis Cocker would one day be mentioning your name?' Good point!"

Forget Jarvis, now that he is swanning it in Paris. The people he left behind in Sheffield have taken to Little Man Tate.

"I think they recognise themselves in the songs, " says Jon.

Even Sexy In Latin? "I was thinking about graffiti on the wall at school, things like Fit As ****, and I was thinking about that Hollies song, Jennifer Eccles, and about stories of growing up and that boy/girl thing, but I didn't want the lyrics to be too sickly, " he says.

So Sexy In Latin it was.

"I don't think there's even a word for 'sexy' in Latin, but it's just a song about graffiti really."

Little Man Tate, play Fibbers, York, on Wednesday. SOLD OUT