!!!

!!! file out onto the stage of a packed-out Astoria like a loosely knit army, launching straight into full attack with a slick collection of things that really shouldn't work.

Throbbing house-synth sounds pulse over funk/disco-influenced rhythms. Slippery, extroverted frontman Nic Offer writhes and gyrates like a cross between Bez and Johnny Rotten, complete with confrontational ad-libbing, crowd invasions and fearless, extravagant dance moves. His beardy falsetto-singing sidekick plays a variety of stuff, getting his moment of glory in a slightly frightening new song about true love being rad. But !!! draw all of this together into a mulchy feel-good tonic of musical enthusiasm – total commitment from all concerned mixed with their unstoppable, endlessly danceable, juddering bass-heavy dance-pop (punk-funk?) make !!! one of the best live bands I've seen in recent years, and seemingly incapable of having a bad night even playing to a cold room of indie fans.

Their new stuff is every bit as good as the old. Just make sure you see !!! every chance you get... bands as clearly drug-fuelled as this one tend not to last forever.

Maximo Park are one of the less likely success stories of the last wave of guitar bands. I last saw them playing an arty indie-pop set to 50 or so people at a Wolverhampton dive just before the re-release of their one perfect pop song, ‘Apply Some Pressure’; they sounded wiry and lean, trebly and twitchy, full of nervous energy. But Paul Epworth’s production job on A Certain Trigger beefed the songs up into indie-rock anthems, casting aside a lot of their aesthetically pleasing lo-fi charm along the way. The new material, and their performance tonight, is more reflective of this more muscular sound: they have transformed from a vaguely adorable North-Eastern indie underdog band into a widescreen mainstream indie monster.

Singer Paul Smith prances around the stage like a skinny Robbie Williams in a bowler hat (I spend half the show hoping for one of the flying plastic pints to knock it off and reveal his famous bald patch). The rest of the band remains pretty much rooted to the spot, the sole exception being the occasionally excited keyboard player. Their general stiffness lies in a stark contrast to the natural, easy energy of !!!.

Of course, the sold-out crowd laps it up. Maximo Park are a big-time indie band now, and their multitudinous fans sing along to even the most average tracks from their debut. The crowd are patient throughout the new songs (uniformly unmemorable except for the new single, ‘Our Velocity’, which at least has a pulse). And all in all, it is a robust, if joyless, performance. But the things that made Maximo Park interesting to me to begin with have left them – they seem like they are happily riding the crest of the wave of their success, and it's difficult to begrudge it. But indie audiences are famously fickle, and in these times an average second album is often enough to stop a band in its tracks. What will become of Maximo Park come the release of Our Earthy Pleasures is still uncertain.