Los Campesinos! @ QMU, Glasgow, 21 Sep

What does the music industry look like for a band whose closest thing to a hit came out in 2007? For most, the labels blowing smoke are long gone. Radio and journalists don’t want to know. The songwriting well is running dry. You’re left toiling in obscurity or finally packing it all in for a steady day job.

For Los Campesinos!, it may have looked like things were headed that way too. But with some DIY grit and perhaps their best set song of songs yet, the cult following has kept growing and against the odds, they’re here in Glasgow for what is their biggest Scottish show to date.

First though, tonight’s support act Me Rex. The London trio’s geek-rock has a touch of Fountains of Wayne in their big, open melodies and they’re equally open in their stage banter. “I got my earwax removed,” the drummer tells the crowd. “Turns I’ve got an ear infection but at least I know about it now.” With their twitchy synth riffs and heart-on-sleeve vocals, they’re a good match for tonight’s headliners and with Skin It Itches they have an impressive catchy calling card with memorable lines like 'I like the way your name tastes in my mouth'.

Now expanded to a seven-piece, Los Campesinos! – self-described as “the UK’s first and only emo band” – are on top form, leaning heavily on their excellent new record All Hell in a set that runs towards the two-hour mark despite the frenzied pace.

By two songs in, the QMU is an absolute sweatbox and it never really lets up. The combination of heart-on-sleeve emotion, progressive politics and obscure football references has long been the Los Campesinos! calling card and they deploy these riches abundantly. When singer Gareth Paisey describes the show as a band in “optimal match performance” thanks to the combination of “no aircon and two tequilas before going onstage”, he’s not wrong.

Notable highlights include the bleakly funny Avocado, Baby – 'A heart of stone, rind so tough it's crazy / That's why they call me the avocado, baby' – and Kim Paisey getting her moment to shine on the bittersweet KMS. To Hell In a Handjob is described as being about punching fascists with your mates, while We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed finds Gareth screaming into the microphone as the audience howl the refrain back at him.

Coming back for a generous four-song encore that includes the extremely catchy, if perhaps uncharacteristically twee, You! Me! Dancing! and a closing rumble through Baby I Got the Death Rattle, the band seem reluctant to leave. 

Almost two decades since Gareth Paisey and guitarist Neil Turner met at university and bonded over Sonic Youth merch, he exhorts the student union crowd to start a band with your friends and 20 years on “you too can be a jobbing musician, using your annual leave to play shows.” It’s typically self-deprecating but the world would be a much bleaker place without a band like Los Campesinos! No wonder their cult audience only seems to be growing.