The Wytches @ Òran Mór, Glasgow, 8 Nov

There's a chilling pall in the air tonight, and it's not just the early season snow drifting down past Òran Mór's lofty spire – it's the night America goes to the polls. Fast forward to the next day and we're grappling with one of humanity's biggest face-palms, but for now, a queasy tension lingers.

The impending sense of doom seems to have gotten to Happyness, who are next on the bill after a punchy performance from WOMPS. The London trio belie their name with a subdued mid-tempo set; muddied vocals don't increase their pull. They're packing two guitars and bass, but a clutch of languid songs with no discernible hooks isn't enough to sustain a jittering, easily distracted crowd.

The calm before the storm is eviscerated the moment The Wytches take the stage. Touring on the back of sophomore collection All Your Happy Life, the album's melange of punk, garage, psychedelia and surf rock sees the Brighton-based quartet bury deeper and harder into their 'beach goth' demeanor. With all the prescience their name suggests, The Wytches have come thundering in with a perfect soundtrack for the impending Armageddon.

A huge mosh breaks out within seconds of C-Side's jarring riffs, and from start to finish the group emanate a ferocious swagger from the smoke and gloom of the red-lit stage. A chant of 'here we fucking go' counts in song number three; frontman Kristian Bell spits lyrics like a bruised boxer spitting broken teeth, and Gianni Honey's hellion percussive talents underscore the wild abandon.

As they carve through the best of the new record and favourites from 2014's debut Annabel Dream Reader, pints sail through the air and people bounce in a heaving mass of flailing limbs. Bell's jagged rasp is stretched to the limit – "I'm losing my voice, finally!" he admits, pre-encore, to a room of wide-eyed, sweaty revellers. The kind of group where every slow jam has a hard edge, they throw everything they have at their manic Glasgow fanbase; a baptism of fire by way of crashing chords and rough-hewn riffs. If this is indeed the beginning of the end, The Wytches are hell-bent on going down swinging.