GUITAR bands: remember them? I’m sure they ring a few bells, but it’s still worth asking, as they’ve recently seemed to go the same way as the UK’s political sanity or playing with two strikers.

Which is not great news for the sustainability of Manchester’s musical terrain, given the nature of most of the groups responsible for making it a powerhouse of angst, attitude and more-than-occasional excellence.

Blossoms – whose use of a scaffolding yard as rehearsal space maybe helps in making them that curious mix of headstrong and likeable – are being styled by some as the guys to turn all that around. Nothing like pressure, is there?

Having been sired in Stockport (taking their name from a local pub), Blossoms might invite snarky, Charlatans-style "they’re-not-really-from-Manchester-anyway" comments, but having the endorsement of Johnny Marr and Ian Brown won’t hurt their credentials.

And neither does the five-piece’s debut, which, at various points, embraces the cultural delving of Morrissey in its lyrics and the electro-sweep of New Order in its sound. My Favourite Room even unpacks the stool-perched ladrock that Oasis reverted to far too often during their down-slide.

Chiefly, however – and for all its often crafty wordplay and dabbling with atmospherics and psych-rock – this is an album so streamlined that it really should be under consideration as an alternative to HS2.

Charlemagne, built to provide the backdrop to sporting montages everywhere, At Most A Kiss, Getaway and Honey Sweet, with their knife-edge synth hooks and crisp production, signal a fondness for stargazing Eighties' pop and position Blossoms somewhere towards the sunnier side of The 1975, while even their excursions into jagged blues on Deep Grass keep more than one eye on the radio-friendliness gauge.

You wouldn’t call Blossoms original or startling, you might even call them fey, but there’s enough of a sense of adventure about their work to suggest that, if they can gain a foothold with this album, they’ll be capable of casting their gaze further.

Blossoms play Leeds Beckett Students’ Union on October 5