In a sweaty, packed basement at Hyde Park Book Club, Treeboy and Arc’s electrifying performance captures the essence of Leeds' music scene, leaving the crowd buzzing and eager for more.

Retirement, the first single from Leeds based post-punk band Treeboy and Arc’s debut album, Habitat, is filmed inside a cramped Leeds micropub. The five-piece are packed into a corner to perform while locals read newspapers, complete crosswords and down the pints and pies the pub boasts. In the video for Midnight Mass, joint frontmen Ben Morgan and James Kay, who also plays bass, ride a tandem bike through Leeds’s suburbs, universities and shopping centres before stopping in Hyde Park Book Club, the venue for tonight’s sold out show, for a pint. The band, which also includes George Townsend (guitar) Sammy Robinson (synths) and Isaac Turner (drums) can be seen in various formations at just about every gig in Leeds. And as I scan the room while standing in a bar queue that almost runs out of the door and into the beer garden, I pass the time by playing a game of who’s who of the Leeds music scene. I spot members of the Kaiser Chiefs, Van Houten and L’Objectif, the head of Clue Records is here.

All of this is to say that Treeboy and Arc are woven into the fabric of Leeds’s music scene almost as much as ‘Treeboy and Arc’ is woven into the fabric of the T-shirts and merch worn by much of the crowd here tonight.

Hyde Park Book Club is a kind of hipster squat with dimmed lights, ramshackle tables and chairs and fairy lights covering colourful event posters plastered onto the walls. My scan around the room quickly confirms that everyone here is either in a band or looks like they should be in a band. I feel rather uncool as I stuff my bankcard back into my pocket, collect my pint from the bar and escort it wobbling down the steep set of steps that leads into the dark basement Treeboy and Arc will perform in tonight.

To describe the room as hot is an understatement that does disservice to my poor decision to wear a corduroy shirt and a jacket and as I quickly roll my sleeves up it is therefore with a sense of shock that I see Morgan setting up the stage for tonight while wearing a fisherman sweater and heavy leather jacket. Thankfully as the band take the stage he has joined the rest of the group in wearing a much more sensible T-shirt as the necks of the bass and guitars battle each other for space on this cramped stage as Treeboy tear through their set of moody, jittery post-punk with little time for small talk.

Tonight’s show is booked in to help raise money for their second record. The songs from their debut sound much more urgent in this setting. Midnight Mass is all looping basslines and swampy synths as Kay plays his bass like he’s just had a considerable amount of freezing cold water spilled down his back - all bends and spins. The mathematical bassline of Retirement is recognised instantly and greeted with cheers as Morgan chants “Fast forward, retire.” with increasing panic over thick, ringing riffs. Morgan goes from detached to pained over Townsend’s needling guitar lines on Behind the Curtain and lists his potential role models (Jesus Christ, Moses, David Attenborough, Bob Mortimer) on early favourite, Role Models.

“It’s fucking hot it here, you have no idea how much sweat is dripping into my eyes” says Morgan as he reaches up and rests his weight on a beam of wood  I am fairly certain is vital to the structural integrity of the building, so I am relieved when he takes his weight off it to bizarrely deliver a raffle “because we’re a fucking punk band.” he whoops as Kay holds open a clear plastic wallet full of raffle tickets with the names of the audience on them. Someone wins a Treeboy and Arc branded slipmat for their record player.

Which is sure to spin the band's new album. The batch of new songs they play from it sound fantastic, urgent and vital. One song sounds like a march towards a dystopian battlefield, another one is a synth heavy wonder that sounds like LCD Soundsystem spent a day in the studio with The Stone Roses while they were recording The Second Coming. It is remarkable. All of them build on the post-punk, krautrock template that has seen the band build a loyal following. 

But it is an old favourite, The Condor, that the band chooses to finish with - a seven minute krautrocking bomb with a bassline that moves like Liam Gallagher and a rollocking drumbeat that seizes the crowd before blitzing a hole in the place.

I spot two ticketless friends in the beer garden when I leave the sweaty cavern who enthuse “It sounded amazing! The whole ground was shaking.” If Treeboy and Arc’s new album sounds as good recorded as it did played live tonight, they are sure to be sending tremors further than Hyde Park Book Club’s beer garden and the boundaries of Leeds.