Spring King @ Academy 2, Manchester, 14 Oct

You’ll oft see the word 'energetic' rear its head in live music reviews – one of the great overused adjectives. But considering Spring King bassist James Green breaks a string approximately 30 seconds into their set at Academy 2, due to some overzealous 100-miles-per-hour plucking, it’s fair to say that the Manchester four-piece are very energetic.

Having sold out the 900-capacity venue, singer and drummer Tarek Musa expresses his disbelief and gratitude to the biggest crowd they’ve faced at a headline gig, before the band rip-roar into opener, Better Man (which gets a re-start after the bust bass string mishap). The already fast-paced number is sped up to criminal levels, and right from the off the room is alight. The size of the room doesn’t take away from the performance either – there’s a Mexican wave of a mosh pit that keeps growing throughout the gig and goes about 50 rows deep.

Driven by melody, energy, spotless harmonies and glorious fuzz, Spring King play like a pop-punk Beach Boys (minus the whiny pop-punk accents). Musa’s ability to write distorted, relatable pop songs and his bandmates’ ability to play them at breakneck speed are what set the group apart. Detroit and The Summer, which both appear early on in the set, are infectious bop-along numbers that possess all the hallmarks of great, wistful pop songs of eras past with added effervescence.

Lyrics are kept simple and every track is sing-along gold; slower numbers like Take Me Away and They’re Coming After You get the girls-on-shoulders treatment and are underpinned by harmonies that would make the Wilson brothers worry. Ending on the Jerry Lee Lewis jive of Mumma, before encoring with the equally turbo-charged Rectifier, you begin to sense a formula running through some of their songs – but it’s one that's done so well you can’t resist them anyway.