Masters In France are nothing to do with that country at all, instead they’re from small town North Wales, and are as comfortable singing in Welsh as English. I didn’t know this when I came across their forthcoming single A.I. (Artificial Inches); listening blind I just knew that I was pretty well smitten. Singer Ed Ellis Jones has a certain something, others might compare them to Kasabian, whilst on the single he has at least one small moment of sounding like he’s nicked his vocal inflections from Sting. The slap in the bass and percussion sounds as box fresh as when Blondie put the rap into Rapture, and the whole thing is out front and crunchy. I’m notoriously intolerant of bloke-fronted indie bands, but these guys had me from the off.

I dug around a bit and found out about the North Wales connection. I’m glad I’d reached a conclusion about the music first, given that I’m from the same end of the same very small country, and I’ve made the mistake before of dismissing things as being ‘too local’. It turns out there’s a growing buzz about Masters too, with support from national radio DJs, and a spot on the ‘Introducing’ stage at next week’s Radio One Big Weekend. I’m glad to see them making waves in the rest of Britain, being a Welsh band can be a mixed blessing and sometimes end up as a bit of a ghetto.

Enough said, on the basis of one song, and having managed to miss their recent London date, I got myself over to Chester to catch them live. It’s a posh little city, and was race day to boot. With only a disco as support, the venue was half full with a mix of students and drunk blokes in suits who’d presumably got lucky on the gee-gees earlier on. In fact too many of the crowd in this smart bar gave signs of being touched by the sun today, so that by the time Masters In France finally get on stage at 10.30pm, there was a slightly disconnected vibe. I was curious to see what the band could do with an audience that had their minds on other things.

Happily, within moments of opening up, they’d compelled the attention of anyone in the vicinity, even if they did resort to asking the audience to move up close to the stage please. Front man Ed had a bottle of red wine on the go, and a shambolic boozy demeanour to match, but I pretty quickly decided this was a bit of an act. Hidden underneath the band’s easy, rowdy bonhomie, they were a sorted and professional outfit. Apparently much of their writing is based on the banality of small town life, but there was nothing Smiths-maudlin. On the contrary it was rousing stuff, dance inflected and steel bright. The highlight for me was A.I. , probably because that I’d heard it before, but they didn’t put a foot wrong throughout the set. They closed with what they announced as ‘a jam’ and I thought ‘uh-oh’ and prepared myself for self indulgence. I was wrong, it was as well written as anything else, great interleaving of the vocals and the rest of this five piece. They were genuinely going to stop after that one, but the crowd were going too well by then. The band gave in and announced they could do one more but it would “probably be a bit crap”. It wasn’t at all, it was a cover of ‘Miss You’ by the Stones. I was impressed that they’d mined that particular vein, and just as impressed with how they treated it. Close enough to be respectful without being slavish, it simply emphasised that really could play. A fitting finish to an impressive set.

They’re at early stages of building a fanbase. With any luck the Big Weekend and the other festivals they’re slotted for this summer will gain them the crowd exposure they deserve; the critics already seem on board.