This time last year Kubichek! were about to release their first record, one that was meant to set them off on an immediate express train to both critical and commercial glory. So, why hasn't the apparently inevitable happened? For starters it's probably got something to do with the current A&R philosophy of looking for the next trend, something that could be equally endorsed by Top Shop as Rough Trade, and more likely to have its roots nearer the Thames' assortment of piers than the Tyne's aging gas works. It certainly can't have anything to do with the tunes, unless major record companies have gone all equal-opportunities and started to employ tone-deaf talent scouts, as Kubichek! have them in abundance.

So many do they have, in fact, that they choose not to play some of their better-known gems - 'That Pop Carry On' and 'Red Tape' - this evening. Not that it really matters, because their set is an engaging mixture of the old and the new, and if 'Opening Shot' probably hints at a more frazzled approach to where they're heading, then 'Method Acting' and future single 'Outwards' perhaps showcase a darker, more intricate side of their nature.

For most of the room the party starts when they play their 'Nightjoy' opus and doesn't end until 'Hometown Strategies', a ferocious melee of guitars and angst spittled vocals empowering one to "Re-move your home town". Brutal then, but inquisitively subtle at the same time. Surely Kubicheck!'s time is now.

"Death on the radio, R-A-D-I-O!" spits The Motorettes' Robin Howe during 'You Gotta Look The Parts' like a man possessed, which on the surface, with his youthful Jack Nicholson appearance could, well be the case.

The fellow North-East dwellers have spent the first part of this year touring, touring and touring, which is just as well because they've honed their songs to an almost unequivical level of perfection. At the start of the year, whilst their potential was obvious to see, there was still an element of nervousness about them that needed to be shaken off if they were to fulfil that belief. Six months down the line, and with a bucketful of future hit singles in waiting to choose from, their tag as Tynemouth's nearly men will soon be buried under the sands and cobbles of their birthplace's oil-stained beach.

With Spector-esque harmonies that The Pipettes would kill for and a fine line in poppy punk not mastered so charismatically since Ash bestowed 1977 on the world a decade or so ago, The Motorettes could quite possibly be the North-East's next big sensation (if their tour mates don't beat them to the punch first, that is!), and in their cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'I'm On Fire' they have a eulogy all of their own to match The Futureheads' 'Hounds Of Love' in terms of re-inventing someone else's wheel.

Finishing off with a blast through 'We Are Solution', those seemingly endless days of going nowhere under previous alias Mos Eisley seem long gone. For The Motorettes in 2006, it really is a gas.