ANOTHER tour featuring NME-hyped Cockneys? Yawn...

First on were The Longcut, whose enthralling post-Manchester squall resembled Sonic Youth ripping out Godspeed You Black Emperor's string section and replacing it with ten Dave Grohls. Shaggy singer Stuart Ogilvie also manned the drums, meaning repeated dashes between mic and stool, while an earth-shaking drum machine provided a backbone to the band's sound. While Ogilvie's slightly tuneless yelps weren't always welcome, his astonishingly hard-hitting drumming style and the spiralling Cave-In guitar lines made for a unique sound.

Next were Hull's The Paddingtons, whose anonymous Libertines-y bluster is surely only gathering attention because of their oh-so-cool London connections. As fictional bears go, they're less Paddington, more Pooh. By comparison, The Rakes seemed like a breath of fresh air, albeit air already inhaled and exhaled several times by Jon King, Andy Gill, and their countless followers. Although relatively enjoyable, their general-purpose punk-funk songs could easily have been drawn from Gang Of Four's forgotten latter albums, and Alan Donohoe's geeky Ian Curtis mannerisms and between-song babbles were entertaining, but not endearing.

While they're currently just about as cool as it gets, The Rakes will be forgotten within months, and in a couple of weeks even The Paddingtons' own mothers will have trouble recalling them. Of the bands playing last night, only The Longcut are navigating their own adventurous course through the oceans of tired clichs currently masquerading as exciting new music; their debut single Transition is out next week, and could be the start of something extraordinary.

Updated: 10:52 Wednesday, November 24, 2004