The absurdly early start time of this Desert Air records audition gig ensures that we miss opening act Panama Amp but a reliable insider assures us that they were heavy and punk. I imagine some sort of thundering emo mess with a guy in big trousers and a baggy t-shirt bent double over a guitar and just generally feeling the hell out of every thrashed chord. As someone who wasn't even there I also strongly doubt that there was anything approaching a tune involved.

Pianist With Mussolini are well dressed in their pinstriped trousers and tasteless ties and their hair is great. Also an additional five points for having a girl drummer. Unfortunately where they should have come on like Phil Daniels from the film "Quadrophenia" looking for some Rockers' teeth to kick in, amid a squall of moody stares and second-hand Kinks riffs, they trudge around in some sludgy indie puddle and only really come alive at the climax of their self-consciously epic closing number with bonus points for the guitarist losing his pick and ripping his strings to threads.

At first glance, Absolute Theory are not promising. Someone should kill all people who wear backwards baseball caps, it's not even a joke, can people not understand? It doesn't look good, it's never looked good, it's not even cool in an ironic retro sort of way. It's just wrong. When they start, though, it's a different story. Singer Ryutaro Kitajima, the first bona fide star of the evening, comes on like Justin Timberlake with even weaker facial hair, thumping his chest and spreading his arms wide at every opportunity in order to receive, Christ-like, the flood of admiration which he imagines materialising before him. It's hilarious at first but after a while his utter self-belief becomes infectious and while I wouldn't touch their particular kind of boy-band rock with a shitty stick, they left me with a smile on my face rather than a smirk.

Declaration of bias here. I love shouty, post-punk art-pop, but even so, The Students piss on every band present with devastating accuracy and from a tremendous height. They open by tearing through a couple of the sharpest, tightest and just downright catchiest pieces of guitar pop ever made this side of 1979 as if it was nothing. When they catch their breath and introduce themselves, they redefine the term "self-effacing" in a way which somehow leaves the audience in stitches and suggests they might just be a little more knowing than they let on. Strip away the nervous facade and every member of the band is a born star. Incomparably beautiful guitarist/vocalist Akiko Yoshida, anorak tied round her shoulders like a little kid playing Batman, has one of the all-time great non-voices and her personality veers wildly between child and poet, siren and bird of prey. Fire-dancing bassist Atsushi Oba cradles his bass the way a partisan does his rifle and caresses the length of its neck with his fingers like Prince does when he wants to treat a special lady just right. Finally, indie pin-up sex god Tetsuro Suzuki is a force on the drums and sets the girls in the audience giggling and swooning like they haven't done since they were in Junior High. With passion and energy they navigate an exhilarating chicane of warped time-signatures and plain great pop songs which stick in your head like cancer only more fun. As they leave the stage it's worth noting that tonight they are the only band who can finish a song and receive applause without having to say "arigato" first.

Last band ALaiNHiLLZ have a tough act to follow but they have an ace up their sleeve which they play to devastating effect. The four members of the band are in fact two pairs of identical twins with co-ordinated hair and headgear. Enough to make you sick of course but you just known the kids will lap it up like the beautiful, brilliantly packaged bubblegum that it is. All the songs need to be is adequate. And they are. The acoustic lead guitar is fresh and the singer has a nice set of lungs on him, they have great confidence and chemistry (although perhaps just a little too much Chemistry as well) but take away the sibling gimmick and there's not much here besides a professionally delivered but largely forgettable pop package. Good luck to them but the real magic tonight has already happened and the shadow that The Students cast is long. -Ian Martin, Feb.14.04