Gig played on 21/10/05

It's usually a bad sign when you arrive at a gig and instantly want to take a machete to the entire audience. Not always - the same phenomenon often happens with Peaches, but she is consistently brilliant - but usually. Indeed, it's sometimes hard to concentrate on Ladytron tonight, given the vivid, neon fantasy of scalping every single asymmetrical haircut in the venue, or strangling every 32-year-old, gently bopping male with a record bag hung louchely over his shoulder. Yet there is a job to do and so we must watch Ladytron.

And though the saying that every country deserves its leaders is false (we know of a few million Americans who would disagree) arch, cool, excessively studied-electronicists Ladytron really do deserve their audience. If they weren't critically acclaimed to such a lavish degree, then taking the stick to them would be a little like thrashing the sickly school runt who has scribbled a few Nietszche slogans on his bag in a foolish attempt to be cool.

Imagine the robotic, frozen sweep of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" but without the genuine emotional terror at its heart. That's Ladytron. Imagine the cool detachment of Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" but without the searing intelligence and the barely contained panic. That's Ladytron. Imagine the Human League but with no heart and barely a tune to their name. That, we must insist, is Ladytron.

But if there's a job to do it should be done fairly. So, "Seventeen" still sounds excitingly glacial if rather slight in a Kelly Osbourne kind of way and "Destroy Everything You Touch" is terrifying in a Depeche Mode kind of way. But otherwise there is something so cruelly obvious and rudimentary about the musicianship on display here that it's embarrassing to believe this is meant to be a significant band. There's almost certainly a three-fingered goth in Hull with a decent record collection who could do better than this, and since there is a job to do, please let them be signed and outsell Ladytron.

As for stage presence, well, sometimes less is more and sometimes less is nothing. Dry ice and scowls are rarely either sultry or moody, they're lazy and cliched. No, we didn't enjoy tonight and can only conclude that to see Ladytron is to place excitement over fashion, pure and simple.

by Jaime Gill