CAKE @ QMU, Glasgow, 23 Jan

"Thank you for remembering we exist," says frontman John McCrea, "we don’t come here very often." He’s not wrong – the Sacramento band’s last UK show was in 2011; their last time in Glasgow was in 2005. And it’s not like they’ve been releasing much material lately either – aside from new single Sinking Ship late last year, 2011 also marked their last major release, Showroom of Compassion. The effects of such a quiet spell can be read in tonight’s QMU crowd: busy but not bursting, the audience here are mainly diehards, a mix of older fans and passionate students – "We love CAKE!"

But they’re a funny band to categorise, and their beguiling blend of styles (rock, country, mariachi, folk, even hip-hop) proves timeless enough to persist in the hearts of those here. To pull in any kind of crowd, even as part of a festival (Celtic Connections), is impressive given their leisurely touring and release schedule. It’s no wonder half the punters here follow McCrea’s lyrical deadpanning word for word, despite him confessing early on that "CAKE does not use a setlist". With seven albums to choose from, the quintet dip into everything from their latest record (Long Time, Sick of You) to their 1995 debut Motorcade of Generosity (Comanche), seemingly on the fly. It helps that McCrea’s songwriting is addictively repeatable, a rhythmic, sardonic drone expounding perennial themes of love, music and industrial anxiety.

McCrea and tireless trumpeter Vince DiFiore are the only remaining members of CAKE’s founding 1991 line-up, and it’s DiFiore’s brass stabs and synth hits that arguably define their sound (along with the rattlesnake hiss of McCrea’s trusty vibraslap). Short Skirt/Long Jacket, perhaps their best known single, shows this off in their encore, but trumpets also pierce through Frank Sinatra, add jaunty optimism to the sombre Mexico and drive the rotary grooves in Wheels. Though their late 90s/early 00s heyday has long passed, their instrumentation – considered, never excessive, almost unremarkable – has weathered shifting musical fads, those trumpets sounding just as era-less now as they did back then.

With the able help of Xan McCurdy on guitar, Daniel McCallum on bass and Todd Roper on drums, McCrea rouses the crowd into call-and-response chanting in Sheep Go to Heaven ('Goats go to hell!') and Sick of You. For the latter, he goes as far as inciting a mock left vs. right division in the audience, encouraging half of us to yell 'I’m so sick of you / So sick of me' as loud as we can against those returning 'I wanna flyyy awayyy'. It’s a room-heating peak of the night.

There’s catharsis in a lot of their tracks; belting out 'You’re never there!' (Never There) with the rest of the room is as satisfying as the 'Gets! Up! Early!' backing to Short Skirt/Long Jacket. But the most acute release comes in recent single Sinking Ship. "We’ve got a lot of things in common," says McCrea, an American to a British crowd, introducing the song. We yell: 'So now we are getting drunk / What was sinking now is sunk,' and the timely truth of it is undercut by a kind of nihilistic joy. CAKE have always been progressively minded, concerned with the environment and politics, but they’ve never wallowed in despair. Shit’s clearly bad enough these days to bring them out of a seven year silence, but their response is still funky as hell with a cracking chorus.