Foxing @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester, 14 Mar

Whatever you might have made of tonight’s Foxing show, let it not be said that frontman Conor Murphy isn’t unfailingly polite. He thanks the audience after the first song, the as-yet-unreleased Nah Man, for having the patience to listen to a new one, and we’re only two tracks in before he pays tribute to the evening’s support acts, Oyama and Fog Lake. That he seems so genuinely in the crowd’s debt is perhaps to be expected from the singer in a band at the vanguard of the so-called ‘emo revival’ (spoiler alert: you can’t revive something that never went away). Foxing wear their hearts on their sleeves with a thrilling intensity and the only surprising thing about them is that they manage to put quite that much in, mentally and physically, night after night.

Mind you, this is only the second date on a European tour that looks pretty gruelling at five weeks long. Murphy’s impressively versatile vocals, capable of flitting between a croon and a howl on a dime, sound plenty tortured already, as he leads the rest of the St. Louis five-piece through the chiming guitars of old favourite The Medic and the tremendously pretty Night Channels, the latter a standout on last year’s terrific sophomore LP Dealer. At the set’s midpoint, meanwhile, they’re joined by a particularly enthusiastic fan for an epic run through Bit by a Dead Bee, parts one and two.

If we’re going to bring the e-word into it, we might as well figure out where Foxing land amongst their predecessors; with the level of pent-up energy that they bring to the stage tonight, they kind of give us a glimpse into what Texas is the Reason might have ended up sounded like if they’d stayed together (and been a touch nerdier). Nevertheless, there’s enough idiosyncrasies here, enough little flourishes – the inspired trumpet outro at the end of the mosh pit-inducing Rory, for instance – for us to know that Foxing have made their own lane. It’s one they’re presently speeding down.