“You are welcome onboard this Happy Tears overnight service to nowhere,” intones a robotic loudspeaker on the opening interlude of 49th & Main’s debut album. Yet the paradox is that this journey doesn’t head into the void. Instead, it winds through a technicolour landscape of genre-bending, rule-breaking, electro-infused indie-pop, tracing the emotional contour-lines of modern youth.

The Kilkenny duo, made up of producer Ben O’Sullivan and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Paddy King, have been quietly building a cult following for their emotionally intuitive sound. With Happy Tears, they deliver a sprawling, deeply personal 21-track debut, which captures both the dizzying euphoria and existential jitters of our age of uncertainty. It plays out like a late-night train ride: complete with ambient interludes, glitched-out loudspeaker announcements and voicemail snippets.

Throughout the journey, there's a kinetic momentum built into the album’s sequencing. Tracks like 'Good Times' and 'Happy Days' thrum with sparkling electro-pop optimism, their euphoric energy pitched somewhere between Fred Again and Daft Punk. In contrast, 'Rewind' (featuring UK artist mustbejohn) and 'Nothing Comes Close' offer hushed, introspective respites, textured with lo-fi piano, ambient warmth, and lyrics that feel like fragments from an old diary. “Let’s rewind, hold onto this moment,” becomes a kind of unspoken mantra for the record.

From the trance-y heights of 'Hold On' (featuring SHEE) to the sax-laced jazz dreamscape of 'Glenmalure Blue', to the tender folk-pop of 'Ardbeg' and 'Come Home', the duo reveal an adventurous musical palate. The quietly devastating 'Self Sabotage' leans into soul and R&B influences, while interludes like 'Roll Over' – which features a hauntingly beautiful nursery rhyme sung by O’Sullivan’s mother – offer tactile moments of nostalgia.

Knowing of O’Sullivan’s recent health challenges also adds an extra sense of urgency to the emotional undertones of the album. Diagnosed with a rare blood condition just as the pair’s career began gaining momentum, he was forced to withdraw from touring. The tension between creative momentum and personal vulnerability hums quietly beneath the album’s surface.

Happy Tears ultimately lives in that liminal space between joy and sorrow – between dancing with abandon and staring out of a train window, headphones on, heart a little bruised. It’s an album whose material will be equally at home on a packed festival stage or in the solitude of a late-night bedroom listen. It’s fragile, beautiful and fearless, much like the experience of youth itself.

As the final interlude 'Percontation' reminds us: “Yes, these are in fact the good old days.”

8/10

Out now