The Horrors / TOY @ The Liquid Room, 16 January

From the ashes of Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong, London quintet TOY are more in thrall to the magpie-like sensibilities of their current tour mates than the boisterous indie pop of that one-time NME hype. Beyond adopting The Walker Brothers' polonecks and The Soup Dragons' bowlcuts, they can sound as though attempting to distill the last fifty years of psychedelic guitar music.

Debut single Left Myself Behind is the highlight that grabs anyone within earshot by the skull, with its hypnotic bassline and a propulsive, Thurston-friendly wall of squall that breaks into a three minute freak-out finale. Their old band is already firmly in the rear view.

Here to honour a postponed date from last autumn, tonight The Horrors look genuinely hungry; bounding on stage to launch into Changing The Rain – all ringing heads and determined swagger. Frustratingly, the guitars are muted and pushed to the background from the outset, meaning Joshua Hayward’s mad scientist array of effects pedals is often put to waste.

It all briefly falls into place for Scarlet Fields’ Hammer horror score meets carousel theme and Dive In’s show-stopping chorus, but Endless Blue falls flat when we should have had lift off. Calls from the Liquid Room balcony for the punk rock entrance they made their name with (Sheena Is A Parasite) go unanswered as the band stick to the rich pickings of Primary Colours and last year’s Skying with conviction – just a shame that the PA put limits on their ambition.