Span

"The Strokes are the coolest band in the world," proclaimed Luella Bartley, as Julian and his nonchalant crew of thrift-clad scruffs posed louchely on selected stages either side of the pond. "The Hives will save your life!!!" blared enraptured music publications as five identically-suited men from Scandinavia wrought havoc across the UK. "Of course we're shite, we're Norwegian" state the t-shirts on sale downstairs at Span's packed headline gig, while upstairs a wild-eyed young man in pinstripe trousers and a t-shirt calmly pours a pint glass of beer over his head, and then leaps to the front of the stage, shaking and gyrating, dousing the front row in amber nectar.

Inevitably, boringly, this band will be compared to the Strokes and the Hives. Fact. Not because they look or sound like them, but because the sound they make can just about be squeezed into the increasingly crowded Garage Carriage on the 11.53 Rawk Express. The crucial difference between Span and every band that they will predictably be lumped alongside is that while said peers arch, imitate, throw exaggerated shapes and generally work very hard on their self-image, Span have a subtle and rare, but unmistakeable quality - they're real. There's a tangible sense that what we see tonight hasn't been assembled for our benefit; they were always like this, before they ever even met each other. Guitarist Joff and bassist Wez wear mantles of quiet self-assurance as the stabbing riffage they create infects the entire room, and singer Jarle is without doubt the most engaging frontman to grace the Barfly stage in a long time. He gets his guitarist to soak him with a jet of water, yanks a headbanging fan onto the stage by his tie to take over singing duties and fixes the audience with quietly psychotic glances all night. The clever thing is, he manages to do this with an ingrained air of serene coolness; in a world of try-hards, Span do what comes naturally.

In the face of all this, one might wonder if this is all to distract from the lack of any real tunes. Nuh-uh. Current single Baby's Come Back is a gorgeous, yummy little bastard - riffs that press your face into the floor, coursing towards an infectious "wahoo!!!" chorus, all of this bashed out at lightning speed, and the subtly vulnerable Peaceful almost manages to elevate the proceedings to a dignified, well-behaved level before things get dirty and lascivious again with the howling Papa; not one of their songs is overshadowed by their singer's indecorous antics. For all the vigour and frenetic delirium of the performance, it is nonetheless a backdrop to the music. Put simply, Span make all the competition seem a little flimsy.