MAKE space in your diary for the return of Space.

Out of view - or should that be lost in Space? - since those long-gone days of chart stardom in the late 1990s, the Scouse combo have bade farewell to guitarist Jamie Murphy and Gut Records but have mounted a comeback this year.

In March they released Suburban Rock'N'Roll, an album that has given rise to a tour of the same name this autumn, when Space will play the Grand Opera House, York, on October 6.

Tommy Scott's band, who concluded their November 1998 tour at York Barbican Centre, chalked up a string of oddball Britpop singles, most notably Female Of The Species and Neighbourhood.

However, as with Pulp and Blur, there was always a dark underbelly to their music-hall chirpiness, and disillusionment, illness, rehab and record company wrangling have all played their part in the band's recent years in rock limbo.

The cartoon pop of yore has died out on Suburban Rock'n'Roll but Scott can still extract a dark kitchen-sink melodrama of a pop song from the surreal side of everyday life, with hints of Squeeze, The Specials and John Lennon being complemented by cinematic ballads and outbreaks of horror-movie sound effects.

Listen out on October 6 for the new Space age of Zombies, Hitchhiking, the nightmare musical shock of Hell's Barbecue and the glam rock-quoting Paranoid Teen.

Indie punk band Koopa will support. For tickets (£12.50), ring 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 08:24 Friday, July 09, 2004