The students and indie cubs near the stage won’t be unduly troubled by any feelings of déjà vu on this night. With formative musical memories that revolve around Britpop and Boyzone, the brutal, monochrome austerity of the Editors will seem like a breath of fresh air to them.

However, over at the back, you would think that the assembled thirtysomethings would know better. With their shelves of dog-eared, post-punk twelve-inches, you would think that they might find little they have not already heard in furrow-browed indie hymns such as Blood and You Are Fading. To judge by the vigour with which balding heads are being nodded, that’s clearly not the case.

Long-established preferences are being vindicated; new ones formed. This, as much as anything, might explain why the past six months have seen the Editors fashion themselves a sizeable following and a Top Ten album out of thin air.

For Tom Smith, the frontman, all the attention appears to have upped the ante. Happiness, in the conventional sense, is hard to extrapolate from his nervy gaze, or his contorted arm movements. But his awkwardness sits well with the unyielding assault of his band’s music. Hence the whipcrack of All Sparks, which has him recoil and bend in time with Chris Urbanowicz’s barbed guitar intrusions.

Comparisons with Joy Division are nothing new when it comes to this Midlands quartet — mainly thanks to the military funk of Ed Lays’s drumming. But they’re even less avoidable in a live context. If Smith’s sonorous baritone recalls that of Ian Curtis, his painfully skinny frame seems no less able to contain the energy being summoned around him.

It’s perhaps not surprising that a band so young have yet to vary their sonic inventory. And when the Editors tend to sag, it’s invariably on slower songs such as Camera and Fall, which expose Smith’s tendency to furnish his lyrics with stock fifth-form imagery. They’re much better when deploying the old indie trick of tension followed by absolute release.

In the case of Let Your Good Heart Lead You Home, that means dropping in a percussive landslide where most bands would normally think of inserting a chorus. Great idea. On Munich, it means Urbanowicz firing off brittle, staccato notes before unleashing a torrent of sound in the final minute of the song. Even better.

Is Smith enjoying himself? In the absence of anything approaching a smile, only the tiniest clues are detectable. Before he leaves the stage, he takes a long look at the cheering throng. He would be well advised to. It will be a good while before the Editors play another venue this small.

August 12, Belladrum festival, Inverness; August 13, Summer Sundae festival, Leicester

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