The Drums @ Hammersmith Apollo, London

If only everything in life was as easy as being in The Drums. This is a band who claim that they can’t play a single chord, didn’t chase record deals and, well, just sort of became the most talked about band in the way that most people become a bit retarded from watching too much TV. Even the name is like the tailed off dialogue of the terminally bored: “What is your band like?”… “Well, we’ve got the Drums...”

Of course it could all be a lie. An elaborate master plan of an evil svengali, who is making the Brooklyn-ites leap through choreographed hoops, directing them like border collies whilst their families are perpetually held at gun point.

They definitely look like a living jack-in-the-box tonight, spotlighted in the Hammersmith Apollo to a baying audience of coffered teens and the paying cogs of Florence and The Machine.

Still, it works. And if they want to stop playing to dance or skip around the stage, then so be it. This is frankly brilliant. Each song is like mainlining naivety into weary eyeballs; with pie-eyed lullabies about surfing and bicycles (‘Let’s Go Surfing’). Half the time they are facing the wrong way but that’s fine too. Each little jittery guitar and shower of reverb forces us down a merry stream with them, whatever way they unexpectedly turn.

Listen closely and underneath it all are disturbing lyrics and seeping dread. Honestly. It all becomes a bit Clockwork Orange. Sure it is summer, but as they say with such plastered smiles and irrepressible hooks, “it’s the saddest summer ever” (‘Saddest Summer’). A bit like a fleeting sight of a ‘Back To School’ sign as you pelt down a hill on Chopper en route to the park.

And any band that can make kids dance with joy to the end of the world at a Florence and the Machine gig are undeniably doing something bloody difficult.