Starting a new Los Campesinos! album is an intimidating prospect and not just because of the apparently anti-Oxbridge title. It’s a little like being the outsider listening to a rowdy conversation between a group of old friends. It’s brash, loud and full of clever in-jokes that you don’t quite get.

But that’s also the joy of it, what on first listening is the musical equivalent of a friend of a friend’s sister’s house party quickly becomes a soppy catch up drink with old friends you haven’t seen for months. Almost every line is its own playful little fable or truism. The musical structure may initially sound a bit like a thirteen year olds first attempt to use Garageband, but you soon realise that this selfsame boy is now closer to 33 and the album is more a monument to adolescence than the product of it.

The lyrics might have come straight from The Smiths but are presented in MGMT-esque synth-based indie pop, with just a dash more passive aggression. Tales of the escapades and love-sickness of their youth still prevail, but now they’re presented more as omniscient advice than a bundle of boasts and whines.

The album is full of the kind of anthemic love-letters to adolescence that one could happily bounce around the room to, whether they’re doing it ironically or not. The lyrics are as sharp as ever, referencing everything from obscure football facts to classic literature (handily both displayed in one of my favourite song titles ever, ‘The Portrait Of The Trequartista As A Young Man’). Gareth David’s voice still sounds like it’s on the verge of breaking but he croons and crows tunefully and is backed up throughout by some wonderful accompaniments and duets.

This album sounds a bit like the picture I have of my childhood, until I remember that I’m not actually Jez from Peep Show. Their music is pervasively catchy, lyrics quietly witty and every song leaves me smiling like a tale from an old friend in our favourite pub.