They have been around for a while and I did hear one of their singles. Currently their album 12 Tales From Winter City is on the listeningpost of 3 voor 12 and I got reminded of them.

The Young Republic

Their sound is very identical to Belle and Sebastian (especially “Girl From The Nortern States”) and you can really hear their echoes in some of the songs. The Young Republic denies that they actually were influenced by Belle and Sebastian and their website does not contain any references to Belle and Sebastian so I can’t conclude any other way than there either must be some sort of big coincidence here or they deliberately removed all references.