Two years ago, the Cloud Room's enigmatically named singer J faced a life-changing moment. He tested positive for Aids, but after 18 traumatic days the test result was found to be wrong. He poured the resulting euphoria into a surging song, Hey Now Now. David Bowie came to their gigs, Kings of Leon sang their praises. But the song refused to take off and, remaining on an indie label, instead became known in the blogosphere as "the smash that wasn't".

Two years on, Hey Now Now is being used in a Pepsi ad, and the Cloud Room are trying once again, taking the campaign not just to the world's televisions but, incongruously, a half-empty northern pub. However, if J learned anything in those 18 days it is to seize life's every moment, and the band treat the tiny venue as if it were a stadium.

Watching the Cloud Room is to be reminded that some bands are driven not by cool but by the exhilaration of playing music, though visually they are no slouches. With fashionably tousled hair and a fitted leather jacket, J is a natural, dynamic frontman, but they ultimately stand or fall on songs that are lashed out with barely a second's pause.

Like Editors and the Killers, the Cloud Room play a big music rooted in 80s postpunk, but also add their own Big Apple twist. There is a slight suspicion that their emergence has come too late, but songs such as the instantly infectious Lou Reed-y We Sleep in the Ocean are too good to remain unheard. The closing Hey Now Now is as anthemic as anything by the Killers and, on release here in November, maybe it will finally become the smash it should have been.