Although you can just about see why Sharks are on the bill tonight, there's something just not quite right here. While their carefully-preened aesthetic doesn't quite mesh with their sound, their real problems are a little less superficial. The overwhelming feeling here is one of frustration: you can't help but feel that buried somewhere beneath the glaringly contrived snarled vocals are the bare bones of solid, anthemic songs, and it's precisely this that ensures that – despite their undeniable energy – Sharks spend the duration of their set stuck in first gear.

Next come Twin Atlantic. Although they successfully unite the room – or the front few rows, at least – during a soaring 'You're Turning Into John Wayne', there's still something perplexing about the critical adoration they've amassed lately. Their songs come off high on intensity but short on imagination, strikingly over-reliant on a clumsy overuse of Biffy-esque stop-start interludes every time the idea well runs dry. Their set soon becomes a listless, schizophrenic endurance test, and doing them no favours is frontman Sam McTrusty, who breaks between songs to bemoan the fact that the band aren't receiving an adequately rapturous reception for a "homecoming gig". While this particularly cringeworthy display of petulance whips the small band of TA devotees at the front into a decidedly artificial frenzy for the next couple of tunes, the rest of us are simply left to hope that both their songs and their attitude will improve with age.

Any accusations of audience apathy are quickly dispelled the minute The Gaslight Anthem stride onstage to the sound of The Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter'. Opening with current single 'American Slang', it takes approximately a song and a half for early sound problems to be rectified, and from then on, it's plain sailing. The venues may have doubled in size since their last visit, but Brian Fallon's wide-eyed disbelief at the rabid reception they receive remains as endearing as ever. It's particularly evident on ubiquitous single 'The '59 Sound', which is greeted with the kind of genuinely spine-tingling euphoria you can't help but feel only comes along a few times in a lifetime.

Generously peppering the main body of their set with songs from third album American Slang, 'Boxer' proves the pick of the new material. It's only during a mid-paced 'Queen of Lower Chelsea' that their momentum threatens to falter, and even then, a riotous 'Great Expectations' puts those fears to rest, and by the time they tear through The Who's 'Baba O'Reilly', it's hard to imagine even the most hardened Gaslight cynic leaving without a smile on their face.

With a six-song encore of older tracks culminating in a skyscraping rendition of 'The Backseat', it's evident that The Gaslight Anthem inspire the kind of flat-out devotion that most of their contemporaries can only aspire to. May the venues keep expanding, and their ascent continue undeterred. It couldn't happen to a more deserving band.

Rating: 4/5 by Mitch Bain

Further links

Twin Atlantic on Myspace

Official page of the Glaswegian alternative power pop band

The Gaslight Anthem on MySpace

MySpace page for critically acclaimed rock outfit The Gaslight Anthem

Sharks on Myspace

Online home of the retro punks