'Student bands' can generally be split into two camps.

In the one, a dreadlocked Home Counties proto-accountant earnestly plays the bongos as a blonde girl just pretty enough to prevent anyone telling her she really shouldn't sing in public warbles away about how the sixth form rugby captain stood her up outside Waitrose.

In the other, four shaggy-haired pseuds name themselves after a minor character in the Iliad and concoct a 'pioneering' sound that manages to – at last! - combine the 'funked up groove' of the Chilli Peppers with Johnny Borrell's lyrical propensity for razor-sharp political commentary.

Small wonder, then, that any newly enrolled student with some concept of what making GOOD music entails has traditionally got out of the university environment almost as soon as the first inevitable acoustic guitar is passed round at the inaugural fresher hall's party.

From Mick Jagger leaving his economics course at the LSE after about five minutes and John Lennon dropping out of Liverpool College of Art, through to Pete Doherty abandoning his English Literature studies at Queen Mary's and Bloc Party's Kele Okereke deciding his essays were better put to music than handed in at King's College London, the 'turn up, lie-in, drop out' ritual has been an almost mandatory rite of passage for those who go on to become the predominant faces and voices of the British music industry.

There are exceptions, of course. Gang of Four formed at Leeds University in 1977 and lasted the three years, but their pointedly political stance had such an inherent intellectual basis - they named themselves after a group of pre-eminent post-structuralist theorists for god's sake! - that they can be hardly considered typical. And a young Radiohead did indeed postpone their ascent to greatness, reforming only after completing their finals - all save for Johnny Greenwood, two years younger than the rest, who fulfilled the required criteria by dropping out of his Psychology degree.

But in general, the trend of bands sacrificing their academic development at the alter of rock'n'roll is so strong that it could almost be seen as a pale middle-class imitation of Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads.

However, it seems a new breed of 'studo-muso' is now emerging to challenge this state of affairs, one increasingly unwilling to abandon their academic pursuits at the first sniff of label interest.

Whether it is evidence of a new realism - a more sophisticated take on the actualities of the record industry, a growing cynicism in the face of the Monopoly money-waving A+R hordes' hollow promises - or just a by-product of tuition fees, there now undoubtedly exists a swathe of signed, successful bands who have refused to accept that the textbook and guitar must inevitably be mutually exclusive.

Los Campesinos!, the tweecore-pop six piece whose much awaited debut album 'Hold On Now, Youngster...' will be released in February, are one such band. Resisting the tidal wave of internet-spawned hype that engulfed them after their demos emerged online during their second year at Cardiff University, the band insisted on finishing their respective degrees before committing to the full-time signed, sealed and delivered band life dangled in front of them by salivating labels.

Lead singer Gareth believes their decision to complete university gave Los Campesinos! the freedom to develop at their own pace.

“We could have signed a record deal and dropped out before our third year,” he says. “But the album we would have made at that point would have been rubbish. We were really lucky that Wichita [the independent label who won the race for the band’s signature] were completely fine with us continuing to study. They knew it would give us time to grow.

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