Death Cab for Cutie @ O2 Academy, Glasgow, 26 Jan

Life on the road seems to suit Washington State indie veterans Death Cab for Cutie as they roll into Glasgow. Frontman Ben Gibbard is a ball of energy as he opens with I Dreamt We Spoke Again from their new album but it takes a little while for the audience to get going.

Last year the five-piece released Thank You for Today, their surprisingly perky ninth record and the first half of tonight’s set leans heavily on that recent material. Gold Rush has a romantic, melodic sweep, carried skywards aboard a chorus of voices while Summer Years is a throwback to the moment 15 years ago when their descending emo-indebted riffs and Gibbard’s intense melancholy briefly captured the musical zeitgeist.

The real crowd pleasers though are the tracks from the trio of records that started with 2003’s Transatlanticism through to 2008’s Narrow Stairs. No Sunlight is beefed up into an out-and-out rocker, while The Sound of Settling is still maddeningly catchy and caustic.

By this point, it’s a cliché – a staple of wedding montages and teenage mixtapes – but there’s still something spine-tingling about I Will Follow You Into the Dark, as a solo Gibbard makes a roomful of men in sweaters and spectacles swoon. Ending with the young lovers anthem of We Looked Like Giants and an arms aloft Transatlanticism, the Glasgow crowd bid the band off into the night. 

The days of TV show syndication rights and tabloid photographers may be over, but Death Cab for Cutie still have an energy all of their own.