A cross between Interpol and Sigur Ros, or even, at a pinch, Joy Division and the Sisters of Mercy, they write songs about plagues, fires and witchhunts that have a real tang to them.

Backing it up live with a look that's part 1960s British Rail, part hirsute undertakers (white shirts, black ties, black armbands, beards), they have real presence. Perhaps what we hadn't bargained for, though, was singer Dave Martin's dry wit.

"So we found out today that our record label is ceasing to exist," he said, by means of introduction to an early song. "This is for Beggars Banquet." The ditty in question, Death of an Idealist, includes the lines: "You are a cancer/You've got a lot to answer for."

Pyrotechnics

Terra Nova - their anthem to doomed Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates - was similarly dedicated to another lost cause: "I suppose this song should be for Leeds United and their failure to get their points back."

Elsewhere a near sell-out crowd was treated to the guitar pyrotechnics of Twenty Five Sins, the Cold War pessimism of A Rook House for Bobby and a new number rueing Europe's apparent imminent demise from climate change.

If I have one beef, it's that they do rely a little too much on an 'epic' formula, but as the band roared into Spencer Perceval with relish it's clear that in the best moments they can carry it off with great elan.

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