Close your eyes when listening to this and you’re living in a coastal town, likely somewhere near Minneapolis, wearing warm flannel and drinking cold beer on tap. Your sweetheart has left you, but fuck ‘em, they were a jerk, your friends are here with you and Big Star are cranked up on the jukebox. It’s going to be fine.

If this sounds like the plot of a late eighties indie mumblecore comedy drama, featuring chiselled slackers and Janeane Garofolo in her youth, this is most certainly the era that The Tubs are pulling from, and the spirit they evoke, despite hailing from Cardiff (now based in London).

Lead singer Owen Williams has the tremulous emotional vocals that call to mind Grant Hart or Lou Barlow: a little punky, a little folky. The songs are generously crafted, whether the anthemic drive of ‘Do Yourself A Favour ‘ and ‘Who’s Gonna Love You Now?’, two indie bangers which make you want to hurl yourself drunkenly around the dancefloor, or the more bittersweet ‘Didn’t I Say’ which softens its cynicism. Guest player Chris Haigh’s fiddle sweetens the pill on the title track.

The Tubs are here to lull us into a sense of false security and nostalgic comfort. The world continues to go to shit outside; here, listening to Hard Life, we’re going to party like it’s 1989. Elon Musk is just the big spoilt kid everyone hates at school, Kim and Thurston are still together, and Sabrina Carpenter hasn’t yet been born. Good times.