Playing to a packed room on a glorious May evening in Leeds, the Twigs seemed perfectly at ease on stage for this faultless set. The grand orchestration of their new album was necessarily dialed-back, but no bother: these are some of the best-written pop rock songs this side of 1970.

I’ve never been so distraught to leave a gig. Heart broken. Gut wrenched. Choked. It had all been going so well. Danny Ayala had been a few feet in front of me, an imperious presence on the bass and an angelic one on backing vocals. Brian D’Addario had stood beside him, literally leaping his way into one miraculous song after another, his lead guitar crooning the sort of indelible hooks that feel like they’ve been lodged in your mind since childhood. The Lemon Twigs were loose and lively, relaxed and yet effortlessly tight. In other words: it had been a perfect gig. But they had only started at 9.15, and the last train home at 10.30 beckoned. I called my Uber to the station at the last possible moment, and rushed out through the crowd just as the opening strains of irresistible surf rocker Bring You Down beckoned me back. It was only once I was in the taxi that I found out my train had been delayed by 30 minutes. I sat with the stag dos and football fans at Leeds train station and imagined just how deliciously sad When Winter Comes Around would have been, or how loud the cheers for How Can I Love Her More?’s stadium-sized chorus were.

It might have been less painful had the back catalogue of the Lemon Twigs, the project of New York brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario, not been so frustratingly exceptional. It’s been a very long time indeed since the Twigs’ chosen niche of 60s pop has had mainstream appeal, and the cultural hegemony on this sound by bands like the Beach Boys and the Beatles might make the D’Addario brother’s attempts to write the next Pet Sounds or Revolver sound like a fools’ errand. But, make no mistake, this is no mere tribute band. Brian D’Addario genuinely is a genius in the same league as his namesake Wilson. Yes, the clichés of the era are emulated – a taste for cheese, an obsession with vaguely depicted “girls”, the occasional Be My Baby drum groove – but so is the less easily replicated magic: divine harmonised vocals, fastidious Wilson-esque orchestration, and tunes that are both musically sophisticated and catchy as hell.

Tracks from Look For Your Mind!, the third hit album in four years for the in-form brothers, receive a hero’s welcome at the Brudenell tonight. There’s a thrilling sense that the Twigs are a bit too famous for stages this small; there are surely few 400-cap venues in the country that can lure in the big names as frequently as the beloved Brude does. The fans already know recent single 2 or 3 word for word, which is perhaps unsurprising given how unforgettable that jaunty chorus hook and giddy key change are. Yeah I Do is a compact pop opus, Brian and Michael harmonising over a breath-takingly adventurous melody, while Michael’s boyish glee at thrashing out the strummed guitar on Fire and Gold is contagious, a Fleetwood Mac-esque chugger that drifts its way towards a blissed-out jam outro. I had fears that all that magnificent orchestration that adorns the new album might make tonight’s standard four-man set up feel underwhelming, but Brian was handily a capable enough guitarist to cover all the necessary bases, belting out the opening flute hook on 2 or 3 for example, a jingle that prompts a Pavlovian response of sheer elation from the crowd.

The harmonically dense tracks are a world away from the straightforward four-chorders ever present in the pop charts today, but tonight the Twigs never seem to break a sweat, the brothers finding plenty of mental space to twirl around the stage with their guitars and discuss shepherd’s pie and drumming technique between songs like seasoned podcasters. There are moments where Brian and Michael could be confused for mere mortals, and then they’ll start a tune like My Golden Years and you have to shake your head in awe. The cascading vocal harmonies in the song’s finale are euphoric beyond belief. As if showing off, the band swap positions for Any Time of Day, and somehow Brian sings whilst playing the sort of meticulous bass line that makes grown men cry. I’ve heard few perfect songs. This is one of them. And yet, like the embattled protagonist of any good 60s pop song about tragic romance, I had to leave just as this glorious affair was reaching its peak. How could I love them more?

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