Oceansize

Forget everything you think you know.

A year ago Oceansize were a sparkling prospect with a dull finish - a glittering future prize whose capabilities didn't quite match the praise and hyperbole heaped upon them. They were distinctly Nearly. Quite Nice. Small shows here and there and a Cooper Temple Clause support slot did little to reveal their true potential.

It's high summer and the sweat is pouring from the faces of every man jack in this room. The five young men onstage lurch around, slipping on their own perspiration, struggling with their guitars as their plectrums slip from their clammy fingers. Perhaps adversity spurs us onto better things; tonight Oceansize exceed all expectations and catch up with the hype, becoming the band that no-one, even their fans, knew they were capable of being.

They're an incongruous lot. In Mike Vennart they have a wiry, spiky-haired, charismatic singer who vaguely resembles Matt Bellamy; something in his demeanor suggests that in time, he'll match the Muse frontman in sheer watchability. And guitarist Steve Durose, sweartogod, is the living incarnation of Buzz Lightyear - shoulders back, chin out, built like a brick shithouse and beaming defiantly at a distant point on the ceiling for the entirety of Oceansize's set.

In a world of furrow-browed copyists, it's desperately refreshing to see a band taking a fairly standard pattern of influences and producing something genuinely innovative. 'One Day All This Could Be Yours' is an eerie minor-chord triumph, casting the ghostly spirit of early Elbow into the formidable body of Adore-era Smashing Pumpkins. Elsewhere the twin spectres of Lucky-stylee Radiohead and Tool's relentless superpower chords are smashed together with concentrated abandon, and the bloody remains are rescuscitated with a shock of effects-pedal abuse. The result is astonishing, and confidently sidesteps the usual array of predictable-mentalist-sonic-scree clichés.

Five songs down, and a room of hot, exhausted punters are left goggle-eyed and open-mouthed. Oceansize knew what they were getting themselves into when they picked their name; as they leave the stage amid a screech of squealing, towering feedback, they've truly thrown down a gauntlet. There is no younger band around with such fraught emotional intensity. There is no fresher band around with a sound this huge. Right now, Oceansize are matchless.