Cigarettes After Sex @ QMU, Glasgow, 14 Nov

Cigarettes After Sex formed in El Paso, Texas in 2008, but it took nearly a decade for the group to deliver their self-titled debut album, which surfaced in June this year. This unhurried, softly-softly approach also applies to their songwriting, with gently aching love songs sketched out against noir-tinted dreampop structures.

In the near total darkness of the QMU, the now-Brooklyn-based quartet stand on the smoke-laced, spot-lit stage, their quiet physical presence invoking a kind of funereal hush. And in terms of BPMs, their tempo starts out – through tracks such as the sly Young & Dumb – about as lively as a last-gasp heartbeat. At times, it looks as though the group are playing in slow motion.

But it’s a tantalising delay: each song solicits rapturous applause from the packed room. By the time lead singer Greg Gonzalez rouses himself enough to spit out the stark lines of the deliciously contradictory Affection – 'So what does it mean if I tell you to go fuck yourself / Or if I say that you're beautiful to me' – a clutch of audience members are waving lighters aloft in ironic acknowledgment of the group’s own ability to deftly defy corniness.

Set to a black and white backdrop of film footage depicting teary doe-eyed beauties, dark clouds and drifting snowflakes, songs like Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby and Apocalypse slow-drip with added poignancy. Whispers of snare and ghostly keys add flesh to these slender narratives, whose introspection and downbeat intimacy prove (somewhat surprisingly) invigorating in a live setting. Cigarettes After Sex have eschewed a support act tonight – their brief set ends with a two-song encore, closing out with the bittersweet Dreaming of You, the final climax of a performance as gratifying as the first drag of a post-coital cigarette.