Cold War Kids are perhaps the most blogged-about band of the year. The internet has been aflame with praise and condemnation of the California four-piece and their debut album, Robbers and Cowards, due for release next February. But singer Nathan Willett is feigning innocence of all the fuss. "We're so excited there are so many of you here," he says. "I don't know how you find out about these things."

Though hype can fill a venue - and this one's full to bursting - Cold War Kids' performances are spoken about with a hushed reverence that must seem ironic to a band three-quarters of which met whilst at Christian evangelical college. Religion seeps through the deliberate cracks in their blues-flavoured, indie-pop. Like a passionate preacher, Willett inhabits the songs, roaring with fervour, his eyes closed, his outstretched hand guiding the military drum beat of Rubidoux. His voice has shades of Jack White and Caleb Followill of the Kings of Leon, and takes as many unexpected turns as the easily bored rhythms and melodies, fluttering to a falsetto before plunging back into acidic aggression.

The rest of the band are just as intense. Guitarist Jonathon Russell and unblinking bass player Matt Maust repeatedly square up to each other, jolting and twisting haphazardly, before hanging over their instruments like puppets whose strings have just been cut.

But in the midst of all the fury, comes redemption. The easy piano melody of We Used to Vacation, the Britpop guitar motif weaved through Hang Me Up to Dry and the sparse soul of Saint John. Each song wrestles with misery and, after a cathartic climax, wriggles with joy. And they don't skimp of the catchy hooks either. Cold War Kids not only justify all the noise made about them. They increase its volume.